THE EXODUS FROM THE FARM 



The Exodus from the Farm. 



BY KDITIIA S. CAMPBELL, ERIE, PENNSYL- 

 VANIA. 



From all quarters comes the com- 

 plaint that the younger generation is 

 leaving the farm. About us lie aban- 

 doned farms once rich in production, 

 now with field after field running wild, 

 the boys and girls having gone to the 

 city, "where you git more money." 

 Efforts are being made to bring them 

 back, back to the biggest work a man 

 can do. to work with the life forces of 

 nature, in a workshop not made with 

 hands, but designed and built by the 

 Master Architect, painted by the Mas- 

 ter Artist with colors and tints no fin- 

 ite hand can copy, whose roof is a vast 

 illimitable space, whose furnishings 

 are the wonders of Infinite Wisdom. 

 Working with these wonders and com- 

 prehending the methods used and 

 learning to cooperate with the Creative 

 Power is the work of the boy and girl 

 that stay in this big out of doors and 

 work for the Great Employer. 



The agricultural courses in colleges 

 and rural schools are helping to bring 

 the boys back. They learn that when 

 farming is done scientificially, like 

 other work, the results are greater and 

 better. In one little rural school a big 

 effort is being made to open the boy's 

 mind to the fact that farming is one of 

 the most important occupations. Man- 

 ufacturing and professions may bring 

 in larger monetary results, but if the 

 farming stops what will become of the 

 city? Back of all industries must be 

 food and the food must come from the 

 farm. On the other hand there is 

 scarcely a science that is not connected 

 with the farm. Geology, the history of 

 the soil ; chemistry, how to treat that 

 soil ; ornithology, from which the farm- 

 er must learn the value of birds to his 

 crops and orchards ; entomology, show- 

 ing him what insects are of economic 

 value and what injurious ; botany, 

 what the flowers, trees and shrubs are 

 to him ; zoology, that he may know the 

 animal life about him, and biology, 

 that he may breed better stock. Now 

 as a background, add the beginnings 

 of the insect, plant and animal. Take 

 the upper grade which in a rural school 

 seldom goes through the rural high 

 school and give them a simple course 

 in plant life and in biology by means of 



the microscope and simple laboratory 

 tests, and you will have the child mind 

 awakened and interested in the grow- 

 ing things about him, a new-born dig- 

 nity within him and a reverential re- 

 spect for the simplest things of nature. 

 He will know somewhat of the great 

 life histories and some of the wonder- 

 ful laws of adaptation and natural se- 

 lection that lie back of them. 



I have seen this proved in a certain 

 little rural school where two years ago 

 the boys were only waiting for their 

 time of departure. Now they feel a 

 new power within them and, where 

 only one boy remained in the corn 

 club organized that winter, this fall 

 the boys and girls carried off fourteen 

 county prizes, amounting to almost 

 fifty dollars and earned twenty dollars 

 in their own round up. The parents 

 and school directors woke up and the 

 little, old one room schoolhouse grew 

 this summer into a beautiful building 

 with two rooms and an auditorium for 

 community meetings while twenty- 

 seven boys and girls are enrolled in 

 clubs for cultivating corn, potatoes, 

 poultry and domestic science. They 

 are working eagerly for still bigger re- 

 sults for this year. Charts of the birds 

 useful to orchard, garden, meadow and 

 woods hang on their kitchen wall. The 

 birds, as they return, are guarded and 

 cared for, the boys knowing that they 

 are the biggest assets for the coming 

 crops. Simple science stories in all the 

 sciences of the farm are being told, il- 

 lustrated by slides and the microscope 

 when necesary, and instead of the farm 

 home being a place of dissatisfaction it 

 has now become the center of a new 

 and wonderful world. 



Dandelions. 



Fair nature's gold is prodigal, 

 Spread broadcast at our feet; 



How cheery is its presence there, 

 Just after snow and sleet! 



How like the sunshine after rain, 

 The morning after night, 



The radiance of the myriad blooms, 

 Reflecting all the light! 



From golden discs to silver globes 

 They turn before our eyes: 



Could we but know the process fine, 

 We would indeed be wise. 



— Emma Peirce. 



