No. 7. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 187 



Now, a false course of training represses the power just as if you 

 set out a tree and then piled stones around it, which would repress 

 the growth of the tree; so of children. I do uot need to carry out 

 the suggestion further. 



The office of education is alike for all human beings, so far as deal- 

 ing with the inherent powers is concerned. Simply to train the 

 faculties is not education; it is not education simply to acquire 

 knowledge. Education means the training of the faculties; to ac- 

 quire knowledge in such a way that the trained faculties can use the 

 knowledge. 



Not long ago I heard a story that illustrates this : Out in the moun- 

 tains of Colorado there was a man engaged in pumping. A mining 

 operation was going on, and the pump got out of order. The man 

 who had charge of the pump could not repair it. The superintendent 

 could not repair it, and they got experts to come who looked it 

 over, manipulated it a little, charged their fees and went away, but 

 the pump broke down and refused to Mork just the same, almost as 

 soon as the repairer had disappeared. Finall}-, there came along 

 one of those curious geniuses that you find in every community, 

 who has a particular knack of doing some particular thing. His 

 specialty, was pumps. 



You have heard of the doctor who said whenever he had a patient 

 and didn't know what was the matter with him, he alwavs threw 

 him into fits, because he was death on fits. This man had this spec- 

 ialty of pumps. It happened that the engineer was an old acquain- 

 tance of his, and he said: ''Joe, I am glad to see you, for I am having 

 all sorts of trouble with this pump, and Joe_, you are just the man 

 to fix it up." Joe said, "I think I can fix it all right;" so the en- 

 gineer went to the superintendent and told him, and the superin- 

 tendent said, "Go ahead, if he can do it, I will be only too glad to pay 

 him for his services." So Joe went to work and in about an hour 

 he had the pump fixed up so it worked all right. The superintendent 

 said, "I am very much obliged to you; just make out your bill and 

 we will be glad to pay you right away." So he made out his bill for 

 |50. "Fifty dollars," said the superintendent, "why you didn't spend 

 more than an hour on it. I want you to make out an itemized bill 

 before I pay you." "Certainly," said Joe, so he sat down and made 

 out a new bill: "Repairs to pump, one hour's labor, 50 cents. 

 Knowing how, |49.50." 



It was the knowing how that counted, and that is the essence of 

 education. It is not simply knowing, but knowing how. Agricul- 

 tural education is knowing how to do things in agriculture; engi- 

 neering education is knowing how to do things in engineering, and 

 so on, and so on. 



