334 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



ncss until there was a change in public education. Had he lived 

 until the closing decade of the last century, his most ardent wish 

 would have been more than gratified. 



It has been said in time gone by, *'that education w^as all well 

 enough in itself, but a man could get along on a farm and elsewhere 

 very well without education." Education does not make the man, 

 nor would education solve the problem of the boys, but that schooling 

 often spoils him, and they point to Abraham Lincoln as one of the 

 best Presidents of the United States, one who they eay had no edu- 

 cation. But, I reply, if ignorance produced Lincoln, wh}' have we not 

 more like him? The truth is, that all growth is cultivated growth in 

 the man, cultivated by his surroundings in which he is placed, and is 

 therefore education. It is true that there are men and women with 

 natures so rich that no education except such as God and nature 

 gives, is necessary. 



John Milton, the sublime poet, said: ''I call, therefore, a complete 

 and generous education that which fits man to perform justly, skill- 

 fully and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of 

 peace and war." It is just along this line that the problem, ''What is 

 to become of the boy," is to be soh-ed. Are we to keep them at home, 

 will we try to stem the current which is carrving so manv bovs from 

 the country home and farm to the cities, w'here so many of them eke 

 miserable lives. Here is, possibly, a solution to the problem. Let us 

 create in our own communities the means by which our boys can 

 secure better educational advantages, without direct cost to them, 

 and without having to leave their homes, and with the free, public 

 high schools, there should be public libraries, containing good sub- 

 stantial literature, free to all. 



The day may be near at hand when the microscope will be as in- 

 dispensable to the farmer as the plow^; when he will harness the 

 lightning to his machinery as he now does the horse. When that 

 day comes, the farmer will not be satisfied with mere instruction in 

 the three R's, but will demand that his children be taught the use 

 of the microscope and the application of electricity. 



Stranger things have happened in the industries of modern life. 

 It is not chimerical to hope that agriculture, w^hich in every land has 

 been at the root of advanced civilization, w'ill, in the progres® of the 

 twentieth century, be the crowning glory of the most progressive 

 people on the face of the earth. To this end let the townshij) high 

 school be established in every township of Pennsylvania. 



Somebody said, "Why do you suggest that all the sciences and 

 agriculture be taught in our public schools in the rural districts?" 

 It may be impossible at present. In many of our schools there are 

 forty or fifty pupils from the a b c's up to geometry, all for one 

 teacher. I heard once a city teacher remark that any body could 



