Tlie Educational Needs of the American Farmer. 117 



gently viewed, would keep the vast majority just where their farmer parents 

 want them ; and for those that are not thus kept, it is plain that another path 

 would be preferable to hfe-long dissatisfaction with their daily work. 



In other words, I do not think that farm life and the farmers' pursuit, 

 intelligently viewed, stand in any need of being bolstered up by the haziness 

 of an agricultural atmosphere, and by holding the boys down to uneduca- 

 tional manual labor, just to keep up the habit, as its advocates say. Intelli- 

 gent parents and teachers can readily render them so attractive that only 

 those whose natural aptitude leads them to other purstxits will be anxious to 

 abandon them. But this can only be done if the precious time when the 

 child's five senses are open and eager for such impressions is properly util- 

 ized, and if sense training be made part and parcel of school education of 

 all grades. 



It is, however, far from easy to bring about this state of affairs, and 

 sweeping legislative enactments in that behalf would be powerless to do so. 

 Teaching requires teachers, and the teachers competent to carry this idea 

 into effect are as yet few and far between; and a large proportion of those 

 now teachmg wotxld prefer to continue in the old routine, which they have 

 thoroughly memorized, and which costs comparatively little mental effort. 

 In justice to teachers generally, it should be said that the rewards attendant 

 upon the performance of their all-important duties are by far too small to 

 induce them to qualify themselves thoroughly and make teaching a life pur- 

 suit. Under these conditions a very large proportion take up teaching 

 simply as a temporary shift, until something better turns up; and thus the 

 teadency is to go no further in qualifying themselves than is just suflBcient 

 to pass examinations. Such half-hearted teachers can not be expected to 

 feel enthusiastic about the introduction of improvements that, in order to 

 be effective, require a strong efibrt and single-minded devotion to the task. 



It should be fully understood that an improvement in the results of 

 education, such as is so strongly desired by farmers in particular, means 

 increased qualifications and efforts on the part of teachers, and, therefore, 

 increased expense, not only in respect to salaries, but, also, as regards the 

 needful appliances. The best qualified teachers, however, will, as a rule, re- 

 quire the smallest amount of such appliances, and will be able to make the 

 ordinary surroundings of a well-kept school-house supply, in a large measure, 

 the place of a multitude of costly apparatus. The more this is done, the 

 more impressive will be the teaching; for nothing makes the scholar realize 

 so fully the meaning and import of instruction as the bringing home of it to 

 every-day life. 



But it is laseless to expect important improvements where country 

 school boards turn over the incalculably important lask of molding the chil- 

 dren's minds and tastes for life to the lowest bidder who can make some 

 kind of a showing. And it must be specially remembered that teaching is 

 itself an art, independently of its subject; and that men or women who may 

 be excellent workmen in certain lines may utterly fail in imparting their 



