154 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



agriculture, as Socrates says, Is the nurse and mother of all 

 industries, the highest interest of Maine is to see to it that the 

 sons of the farmers, whose industry is the primary source of all 

 wealth, have the finest education of anv of its citizens. It is 

 not only the duty of the state from the humanitarian standpoint, 

 but the interest of the state herself will be best subserved by 

 making education the common property of every child of the 

 state, particularly of the rural child. But how shall we enable 

 him to acquire this education, or put it within his reach? I do 

 not know, my friends, of any practical way of reaching the chil- 

 dren of the rural school through the state except by the system 

 of transportation of students. I want to repeat, before I enter 

 this field, that I mean to carry to its logical result the proposi- 

 tion that the state herself must provide the resources or funds 

 to support these schools. If the premises upon which I have 

 founded my discussion are true, let us not shrink from the full 

 consequence of the logic, but be true to truth and not rest until 

 our rights to the utmost are secure. 



When we have the funds provided, how shall we reach the 

 student of the countn^ in a practical manner? I advocate the 

 adoption of the system that has sprung up in Ohio and extended 

 beyond her borders. I have not time to discuss this matter in 

 detail, but will say that in Kingsville, Ohio, some years ago, 

 some of the brightest citizens discovered, or thought they did, 

 that the efifective power of graded schools was twice or thrice 

 that of the old-time schools, and that there might be economy in 

 concentration of school work. The constitution being in the 

 way, they applied to the state for the individual right, as a town, 

 to form one central high school, and to transport all the students 

 to that high school. Now, after years of trial, I am told by 

 those who have visited those schools and by those who know, 

 that there is no one who would return to the old system; that 

 the actual expense per child is less under the new system, while 

 the increased power for education of the graded schools and the 

 superior talent of the teachers who are made permanent, has 

 raised the whole level of the educational work of that township, 

 and so striking has been this result that other towns have applied 

 for the same opportunity, until the outcome is that Ohio has 

 entirely revised her laws relating to the matter and now there 

 are many towns in Ohio which transport their children to a cen- 

 tral school. There is not, and probably there never can be, an 



