THE FARMER'S EDUCATION— WHAT HE CAN DO FOR HIMSELF. 491 



highway, when ten or fifteen years old, will often add 11,000 to the value of 

 a farm. And a school property so treated will raise the value of all the 

 property in its neighborhood. 



Hon. Wm. Chamberlain: The provision made for our public schools 

 seems ample, but there is a difficulty in securing attendance. Suppose each 

 township had a School Suf>erintendent, whose duty it was to know all 

 the children in the town and to see to it that they did attend, except when 

 satisfactory reason for not doing so could be given. 



Mr. E. K. Warren: As to the proportion of children attending our 

 schools. The number of children from five to twenty years was canvassed, 

 and we found but forty to forty-five per cent were in the Sabbath schools, 

 and eighty per cent in the day schools. 



President Willits: Was that true of one particular date, or for an entire 

 year? 



Mr. Warren: At that particular time. 



President Willits : Then the showing is really more than the facts, for 

 many of our young people attend at onetime of the year, e.g., in the winter, 

 and not at another, so the percentage would perhaps be ninety per cent. 



THE FARMER'S EDUCATION, WHAT HE CAN DO FOR HIMSELF. 



BY J. WESTON nUTCHINS, A FARMER. 

 [Read at the Hanover Institute, February, 1887.] 



That the farmer needs to be educated is no longer denied. 



The theory of former years, that one-half the world should do the thinking 

 ■while the other half does the working, is obsolete. We have learned that the 

 object of education is not primarily to train lawyers, doctors, or farmers, but 

 to train men ; not so much to fill the mind of the student with a fixed number 

 of selected facts, as to develop character; to lead the mind to correct thinking 

 and the man to right living. Not knowledge alone, but knowledge and disci- 

 pline — a discipline which reaches the whole man — intellect, feelings and 

 will, is the two-fold object of education. 



All these results the farmer needs as much as others. But how shall 

 he obtain them? 



Few farmers have an opportunity during their school days to become 

 familiar with any but the most common studies. 



Many are hedged in by circumstances over which they have no control. 



The grown up sons, whose services are just becoming valuable, cannot 

 well be spared from the home and farm. Many fathers seem utterly indiffer- 

 ent to the possibilities stretching out before their boys. 



Many young men fail to appreciate the value of an education until too late. 

 Others have received an education fitting them, no doubt, for literary or 

 commercial pursuits, but giving no answer to many of the questions which 

 confront the farmer. Nature's half-hidden secrets, but half-hidden to one 

 acquainted and in sympathy with her moods and methods, are to them the 

 profoundest mysteries. 



