572 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Prof. Roth: I would like to ask Mrs. Meredith in regard to hev 

 opinion about the isolation of the farm population. Two-thirds of the 

 people of the United States are farmers. It seems to me that we are 

 isolated altogether too much in this country, and I have wondered if 

 this was not the cause of the discontent. In Germany the farms are not 

 so large, and consequently the people are closer together. This makes 

 it more like the village method. I wonder if it isn't likely that we in 

 this country will sooner or later adopt the same method. 



Prof. Latta: Doesn't this question give point to your plea for special 

 training? 



Mrs. Meredith: I never felt so lonesome in my life, or so homesick 

 as when I was in Germany, I have lived on the farm. It seems to me 

 that there is always plenty to occupy one on the farm, so that they could 

 not feel lonesome. We have so many advantages on the farm. We 

 have good roads, and an ever endless number of good books. We do not 

 feel lonesome, I am sure. There is a class of people, and we know them 

 very well, who have no resource within themselves and are not satisfied 

 unless they are looking out of the window at people passing by. For 

 this class of people farming is not the thing. There is one great need 

 today, and this is that the country school teacher should have a special 

 training. They should be specially taught. I know a girl that is teach- 

 ing school that was trained in this way, and she is a wonderful teacher. 

 She succeeds in getting the pupils so interested. I know a girl who is 

 teaching a country school, and if you will believe it, they raised her 

 salary five dollars on the month without being asked to. These are the 

 kind of teachers that are needed so much, and in my opinion only the 

 teachers who are trained in agi-icultural collo.urs are prepared to teach 

 about the animal and plant life, etc., the veiy things which the children 

 should know. There is a special need for this kind of teachers. 



Mrs. DeVilbiss: I want to say a word about isolation on the farm. 

 I lived in a village once, and I never got so lonesome in my life as then. 

 I have never been in Germany. I could not stop to take my potatoes 

 out in the yard and talk to my neighbor over the back fence while peel- 

 ing them. We talk about isolation on the farm. I can not see what 

 people mean. We have all the books that have lioen i)rodu('(Hl before us 

 for study, and all natui'o to study, a great opportunity to learn. Why, 

 then, should we get lonesome? We have just as many advantages on 

 the farm as in the city. Pianos are no more expensive, and besides there 

 is a feeling that when you sit down to study you can study. There isn't 

 someone to run in and gossip. When you want your children to study 

 you can have them study; there is nothing to take their attention or to 

 call them away. I was told not long ago by women who live in the 

 city that they did not see how in the world I got so much time to read, 



