276 ANNUAL RErUKT OF Till': Off. Doc. 



of Domestic Science was not dreamed of; electro-cliemical engineer- 

 ing was not l<nown. These liave come, of course, with tlie demand. 



ilut take the lower grades of the school; is it not true that we 

 are teaching just about the same subjects as tifty years ago? The 

 change has come in the upper part of the line, but not in the lower. 

 They are still parsing, ciphering and memorizing just as they did 

 ill the country school when 1 went there. 1 sometimes wonder 

 how manv of those things 1 have used since that time. We still 

 have reading, writing and arithmetic as in the old days and i am 

 wondering whether the time is not coming when we will demand 

 a re-adjustment along these lines as we have secured it upon the 

 higher lines. A short time since 1 was in a conference of school- 

 teachers— 1 think there were no educators there — all school-teachers 

 and practical people, jut>t as 1 take it the people you address are 

 all farmers and not agriculturists. There we were discussing these 

 problems and somebody made the statement that all these years 

 we have been giving the same kind of an education to the boy in- 

 tending to live in the country that we gave to the boy that intended 

 to live in the town. We began to analyze the situation. How 

 many problems in arithmetic will lead the boy back to the farm? 

 You remember the i)roblems ; so many ^ards of cloth at so much 

 a yard. Does that lead the boy back to the farm. We used to have 

 another: Bought 16 2-8 head of sheep. 1 was always worried about 

 the 2-3 head of a sheep. 1 wondered how the farmer got that 2-3 

 of a sheep home. We had a few problems leading back to the farm 

 but the most of the ijroblems concerned yards of ribbon, of cloth, 

 bookkeeping, accounting, etc. 



Kow is it not true that nearly every one in this room has his 

 or her ideal. In the school room our chief task is to form ideals. 

 Take the average boy and what is his ideal at present. His ideal is 

 a man not above average height, a near sighted man who has promi- 

 nent teeth and a sti-enuous manner, he is mostly shooting some- 

 ing; he is generally bursting something. That is the ideal of the 

 boy at the present age, based upon the most i)rominent man in pub- 

 lic life. H' you or 1 could change the ideal of the corrupt politician 

 in Pennsylvania — I don't know if there is such a thing — if you 

 could take the most corrupt politician and change his ideal, get 

 him to believe he ought to work for the public good instead of his 

 private gain, he would cease to be a grafter. You make him realize 

 that public office is a public; trust and not, as he believes, that pub- 

 lic office is a private graft. As 1 looked at the 1,400 boys at State 

 College last Sunday' 1 wondered what kind of an ideal was being 

 formed by them. 1 believe our studies are not more essential in 

 schools than the forming of worthy ideals. 



2s()w take the country boy in school forming his ideals. As he 

 works out his i»roblems does he see himself following the plow? 

 No, he sees himself canering in my lady's chamber, as Shapespeare 

 says, and measuring off ribbon with his nails brightly manicured. 

 He will not be a clodhopper, he intends to stand behind the counter. 

 Does he see himself back at the farm? Kather he sees himself a 

 bookkeeper, perched on a high stool, totting up columns in a ledger. 

 Take again when w^e read the reading lesson. Shelly's Ode to the 

 Skylark. Now the skylark is all right on the farm in England. 

 But I question whether an ability to comprehend the poetry of the 



