MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 323 



nectiou with agriculture. Should they not be taught those things 

 which will enable them to most successiully earn bread to eat. Cer- 

 tainly, you say; and is not that the result of education as given? Let 

 us see. 



Among the things usually taught in our common schools are ability 

 to read from the printed page, to spell, to write with a pen, to analyze, 

 parse and construct sentences, to name the capitals of states, the rivers 

 that flow into the Atlantic ocean, recite the multiplication table, and 

 possibly extract square root. All of these accomplishments are very 

 desirable and should not be neglected, and it must not be understood 

 for a moment that I decry the need of instruction in the subjects usually 

 taught in our public schools. There must be thorough instruction in 

 these; but before agriculturists shall become an educated class in the 

 technical part of their business, this work must be made a means to 

 that desired end, and not an end in itself, simply as that much done 

 toward making lawyers, ministers, doctors, etc., worthy and needful as 

 these professions are. 



I think it is unfair that the system of instruction followed most 

 generally in our country schools should be such that whenever the 

 ambition to succeed to win wealth or fame is aroused in our country 

 boys and girls, it is in the direction of some calling other than that of 

 their parents. In the majority of cases the teachers in our country 

 schools are young men and women who are teaching as a means to an 

 end entirely distinct from their present employment, and from that of 

 their school parents. Particularly is this true of the male teachers. 

 Many of them are embryo lawyers, doctors, etc., and naturally are 

 looking forward to the time when, without question, they will stand at 

 the top of their chosen profession. Looking as they do through glasses 

 of a particular color, and in one direction, it is impossible that they 

 should not cause the young minds under their direction and control to 

 imbibe some of their views. So that, as year after year these different 

 special advocates bring their influence to bear on the children during 

 their most impressionable age, the inevitable result is the- awakening 

 of a strong desire in the breasts of most of the pupils to get away from 

 the farm home ( which too often is a cheerless one ) to the city, where, 

 the teacher tells them, fame and fortune are to be won. 



It has not been many years since people who lived in cities and 

 towns supposed themselves to be the sole representatives of all edu- 

 cation, refinement, general intelligence and wit of the universe. 



Individuals even thought that if they were called upon to " shuffle 

 off this mortal coil," "wisdom would die with them." They could not 

 realize that occasionally the rural districts nurtured men and women 



