o32 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



good American citizenship, viz. : Activity of intellect, morality, health, a love 

 for manual labor and a belief in the honorable nature of such labor, and a 

 hatred of shame and pretenses — teachers who realize that mind grows symmetri- 

 cally by the active, independent exercise of its faculties and not by simply 

 remembering what is read or told ; and that the mind is valuable in proportion 

 to the amount of such training it receives and not in proportion to the amount 

 of learning memorized. If I am not greatly mistaken, a large proportion of 

 of these high schools are justly liable to the charge of failure in all these 

 respects. It is notorious that from the beginning of a term of school to its 

 close the eye of the teacher and of the scholar is kept on the examination to 

 be held at the end of the term — an examination at which success depends 

 principally upon the pupil's verbal memory of the contents of the pages scanned 

 during the dozen previous weeks. Teacher and pupil stake their reputa- 

 tions upon the result of such delusive examinations. The consequence is that 

 all the more important requisites of training vanish from their view and we 

 have the pouring in process, pure and simple, instead of the educating or 

 drawing out process. 



One is tempted to think that it is a stigma on our school management that 

 from a training on the streets there grow up boys excelling the graduates of 

 our schools in activity of mind and strength of intellect and of body. It is 

 not to the credit of our schools that their graduates are so frequently distanced 

 in the race of life by those who in youth were denizens of the street or of the 

 backwoods. 



Again, it should be a cardinal virtue of the American citizen that he love 

 labor and honor every manual employment. The undercurrent of the influ- 

 ence at work in these high schools is in conflict with this doctrine. It is not 

 indeed an open, avowed opposition to these principles. If it were undisguised 

 it would be promptly resisted by many who fall in with the silent influence. 

 It comes like the rain falling gently upon the mountain side, apparently all 

 harmless, but in its effects it is as destructive as is the rain formed into the 

 mountain torrent, carrying death and destruction into the plain below. It 

 works by complimenting the fashionable form, the fine clothes, the cheek 

 seldom seen by sun or fanned by breeze, the soft hand, the languid air. Not 

 always an explicit compliment, but yet a compliment. You know how it is 

 done. And in every school the scholars who have these characteristics are the 

 petted ones. There need be no surprise then that the youth, so sensitive to 

 praise, affect these things and seek to acquire them. The result will be as the 

 past and the present teach, that their children, if not themselves, will be sup- 

 planted in the business of the country by the children of those reared on the 

 frontiers and on the farm who have only the scantiest means of education in 

 schools. To be of value to the state citizens must grow up hardy, vigorous of 

 intellect, simple in life and manners, — qualities too generally disregarded by 

 teachers. I hear it said that the English oarsmen recently, in attempting to 

 arrange a race with the oarsmen of this country, proposed to establish a rule 

 to admit no one to take part in the contest who had ever earned a dollar by his 

 personal labor. They wanted only gentlemen. I am sure we do not want to 

 transplant any such slip of English Philistinism into the soil of this country. 



Thus without taking the time necessary to elaborate them I have mentioned 

 some of the matters necessary, as it seems to me, to be kept in mind in con- 

 sidering the questions vital to the interests of our school system. And whether 

 you assent to what I have said or not I shall be repaid for my effort if I have 



