118 American llorticuUurnl Soclefi/. 



knowleilpp to the young. This is u mnsi essential eonsidt-ralion, in view of 

 the fad that it has often heen suggested that in country schools the neigh- 

 horhotxl car|)enter or blacksmith should be called in to give instruction in 

 their trades to the school childn n. Asa rule, such arrangements will utterly 

 fail, and only prove a wearine.-s to the cliililrcn, for the ordinary arlisjin wiil 

 use no other methods than those he applies to his apprentices, namely : to let 

 the learner absorb what he can by looking on, or by doing the things him- 

 self. This mode of learning is extremely tedious, and, as a rule, a compari- 

 son of results achieved, and of the time employed, will be far from fatisfac- 

 tory. As a matter of fact, the teaching of any particular trade is not, and 

 can not be, the object of the common schools, for the subj.cts would be too 

 numerous and the appliances needed far too costly. Wliat the schools should 

 and can do is to teach each child to make use if Inn Hfnues (iml fnculties am- 

 jointhj ; after that, instruction in special trades must be left either to indi- 

 vidual eir.>rt or to special Iratle schools. If it were attempted to imp'SP the 

 learning of any particular trade upon all the children of any school, the inev- 

 itable result would be a general rebellion against th.it trade, and probably 

 it would be the most unpopular of ail the life-pursuits chosen by the 

 scholars. 



This brings up the subject of the so-called " farm schools" about which 

 so nmrh has been said, as though they woidd be the supreme remedy for 

 the exodus of farmers' boys to the cities. As understood in Europe, " farm 

 schools" are establishments where boys are taught simply the handicraft of 

 farming, with few or no principles, but substantially only rule-of-thumb. 

 They are intended for the sons of peasants who desire to learn an improved 

 practice, after having gone no further th;in the common school, in which, 

 moreover, the training of the senses has boi-n pretty much left out. The 

 boys, therefore, learn by absorption what will be the i)est practice for thcin 

 in their particulrir neiL'hborhood. As the boys are predestined to be peas- 

 ants themselves, no effirt is made to give them a glimpse of anything else. 

 It would be useless to them. 



But I do not believe that our farmers, as a body, want liial kind of in- 

 struction for their sons, even for the sake of making them farmers. Not 

 only the American boy himself, but the boy's parent*, very soon revolt 

 against any such machine work, as has been amply shown in the c&ve of the 

 agricultural colleges that were at first establishetl upon the farm .school ide.i, 

 and in the main give the boy a bare grammar .'jchool education while mak- 

 ing him work for his living most of his time. The idea took like wild-lire at 

 first, and like wild-fire it soon burned out. These very same institutions 

 have, stc]) by step, been compelled, not by the old school edticators, but by 

 the demand of parents and pupils, to throw out of their coiuve all unin- 

 .structive labor, and to enlarge the scope of instruction, until the subjects 

 taught (liflTer but little in kind from those in the courses of other, non-agri- 

 cultural, institutions. Albeit, they remain differently proportioned, and very 

 properly so. But the dense agricultural atmosphere at first created around 



