AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 83 



scoffed at the idea of farming upon a scientific basis; and that 

 feeling, I am sorry to say, is not entirely gone, but, under the 

 influence of the agencies that exist today, it is fast disappearing. 

 I might speak to you today of several instrumentalities that are 

 in existence, provided for the education of the farmer. I might 

 speak to you of the agricultural press, I could talk a half hour 

 on that. I might speak of the Grange, one of the most potential 

 factors in the State of Maine in the education of the farming 

 community in their calling, as well as in other directions. I 

 might speak of the department at Augusta, represented by our 

 friend, Mr. Gilman, a department that is doing grand work for 

 the farmers of the State of Maine. Or I might speak of the 

 department at Washington, a department that is represented in 

 the President's cabinet, a department which has appropriated for 

 it four or five million dollars every year for the advancement of 

 agricultural knowledge in this country. But I cannot spend time 

 to speak of any of those things. I do not pass them by as being 

 less important than the subject of which I intend to speak. They 

 are all important and powerful agencies in the education of the 

 farmer today, but time compels me to pass them by, as I wish to 

 speak of agricultural schools. Besides colleges we have second- 

 ary schools, that is, academies and high schools, and we have 

 that class of schools which is below the academy and high school, 

 the primary school, the common school. I want to speak for a 

 moment about education in the common school. There has been 

 a demand for upwards of half a century, in the states of this 

 Republic, for the teaching of agriculture in the common schools. 

 You see what that means. It means that farmers have felt all 

 along that an agricultural education was needed for them, and 

 in order to make it universal they have turned toward the com- 

 mon school for it, because the common school was universal, and 

 so attempts have been made in this direction in many states. 

 Attempts have also been made in European countries to introduce 

 the teaching of agriculture into common schools. An attempt 

 was made in the State of Maine a few years ago. The matter 

 was taken up by the State Grange, resolutions were passed in its 

 favor, a law was put upon the statute book looking towards that 

 end, and some attempt was made to teach agriculture in our 

 public schools. I think I may safely say that it proved a failure; 

 and I believe the foremost reason for that result came from the 



