No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 319 



First. The farmer bov must be educated, because to do successful 

 iainiiiig' ie(iuiies trained intelligenct-. Comi)arative]y few farmers 

 are college graduates but faiiuing would be more L'enerally successful 

 aud would be a more highly honored business if more were. How- 

 ever, as the majority of farmers will never complete college courses it 

 is important that the boy be given as complete aud (borough a train- 

 ing as the farmer can command. The courses of study in the com- 

 mon, ungraded schools of the country aiv. not sufficient and more 

 extended courses of study should be provided by I he establishment 

 of a higher grade of schools in which should be (aught higher 

 branches. 



In these schools special attention should be given to literature, 

 history, nuithematics, chemistry and botany. The course of stud}' 

 may contain as many others as can be studied to an advantage but 

 fhe farmer boy who intends to go no further should. I believe, pay 

 particular attention to these branches. 



Literature will help him to be a more intelligent, discriminating 

 reader; history will enable him to appreciate more fully the blessings 

 of our present civilization by showing through what toil and tears 

 and sacrifice it has been bought; a knowledge of soils and of plants 

 and plant growth would enable him to see everywhere about him 

 things of wondrous beauty which but few farmers ever see, or in- 

 deed, even know of their existence. 



If the farmer boy is taught to know these things he will love them 

 and, I assure you, will seldom leave the farm because he does not love 

 it, or because he thinks its menial tasks beneath him, but because 

 necessity, opportunity or duty calls him elsewhere. Even then he 

 will go with a feeling of sadness that he must lose the blessed in- 

 lliiences of the old farm life. Teach him as be should be taught aud 

 he will not feel, as some do, that to be a farmer is to be a nothing; 

 he will, on the contrary, feel proud, even in the presence of a king, to 

 say: "I am a farmer." God has never given a more honorable or 

 useful work unto men than that which the farmer is engaged. 



Second. The farmer boy should be educated because of the par- 

 ticular kind of knowledge required to successfully manage his farn.. 

 Therefore if he intends to spend his life on the farm, he should be 

 trained in the science and best approved methods of farming. His 

 work is work that cannot be dispensed with; the world will always 

 have need of the farmer and is constantl}^ demanding better ones. 



Third. The farmer boy should be educated because many farmer 

 boys will and must leave the farm in young manhood and engage 

 in other pursuits which require skill and ability. The past half 

 century has been one of great progress and achievement. Many 

 startling and revolutionary changes have been made; changes which, 

 if we consider them from an economic standpoint alone, will make 

 it necessary for many boys to leave the farm. 



