No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 235 



tained by the spread of intelligence among the masses, all intel- 

 ligent opposition ceased. 



The school and the State are interwoven in the texture of our 

 Constitution, and government and education are the cause and con- 

 sequence of each other. The destiny of the nation, and the destiny 

 of the common school are one and inseparable; maintain the one 

 and you uphold the other. I believe that in the years to come when 

 great empires and kingdoms shall be wrecked amid the storms and 

 cyclones of revolution, this Republic will stand securely, so long as 

 our public schools are managed wisely and well. If education had 

 been left to the family, all the languages, the traditions and customs 

 of the old world, would have been transplanted with new life into 

 our American Republic, and instead of being one people, with one 

 language, we would soon have become a people of many languages, 

 and divers customs equal to, if not worse than Russia to-day, with her 

 numerous dialects, and a dozen distinct languages. For several 

 years I happened to be what was designated "educational editor" of 

 a Pittsburg daily newspaper. One of my duties as such, was to visit 

 all the schools of the city at least once each year, and of course 

 "write them up" for publication. I wish friends that you could all 

 go with me to some of the ward schools in the down town districts 

 of that great Western Pennsylvania city, that you might see the chil- 

 dren of the German, the Frenchman, the Italian, the Hungarian and 

 the Slav, and of foreigners from every clime, yielding up the language 

 and traditions of their fathers and paying willing homage at the 

 shrine of our ancestral Saxon. In thus calling your attention to the 

 mighty influences of the public school, I have digressed somewhat 

 from my subject, for which I hope for your pardon. 



The more important problem for rural communities to solve to-day, 

 is not how to grow alfalfa, nor how much lime should be applied 

 to an acre, nor any of the many agricultural problems discussed at 

 our Institutes, but it is how best to secure the benefits of a graded 

 school system for the farm children. I would impress this thought 

 upon you, that the more important problem for rural communities 

 to solve at the present time, is how best to secure the benefits of a 

 graded school system for the farm children, and instruction in the 

 higher branches of learning, without them being obliged to go from 

 home. Many farmers do not feel able, in fact, have not the means 

 to send their children away to school, and others do not find it de- 

 sirable to change their place of residence as some do in order to give 

 their children a better education, than the rural schools afford and 

 consequently, as Dr. Schaeffer, our Superintendent of Public In- 

 struction aptly says in one of his reports: "The larger educational 

 advantages are limited to a very few of the boys and girls upon the 

 farm. I believe that consolidation of rural schools will solve this 



