Educational Topics. 489 



EDUCATIONAL TOPICS. 



WHY DOES EDUCATION DRAW YOUNG 

 MEN EROM THE FARM ^ 



BY Du. T. H. HOSKINS, OF NEWPORT. 



In looking over the two published volumes of the Reports 

 of this Board of Agriculture, I find that they contain seve- 

 ral papers discussing the reasons why young men leave the 

 farm to engage in other operations, instead of devoting 

 themselves to the business of their fathers. In these papers 

 it is deplored as a great evil that so many young men, and, 

 especially, those best educated and most qualified to develop 

 the improved agriculture we so much need, are averse to 

 farm labor, and seek every opportunity to engage in some 

 other business. For a number of years I have been greatly 

 interested in the subject of agricultural education — that is, 

 the preparation of the young farmer for his business, by a 

 course of study in those branches of knowledge, an acquaint- 

 ance with which would be of direct practical benefit in the 

 various and difiicult operations of the farm. • But in all my 

 appeals to my brother farmers to take an interest in what 

 seems to me to be a most impoitant matter — one without 



