594 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE • Off. Do«. 



were provided with a fund from the Federal treasury equal to 10 

 cents per capita of the entire population, and one-fourth of it were 

 put into technical education in agricultural high schools and three- 

 fourths into technical education in city schools, and the state were 

 required to expend an equal amount along these lines, the evolution 

 of agricultural and mechanical trades and industries would be 

 rapid, and the results to Pennsylvania's income and civilization 

 would be both extensive and profoundly beneficial. 



Mechanic arts' education thus extensively supported would result 

 in much stronger leadership in the engineering professions and in 

 the business management of Pennsylvania's industrial and trans- 

 portation enterprises. Every boy in the state with strong instincts 

 along any of these lines would then have the opportunity of the 

 largest development of which his nature is capable. Ten agricul- 

 tural high schools in the state, each provided with $15,000 from an 

 outside source, and |15,000 from the state would send to the agri- 

 cultural college course at State College, splendidly prepared, all 

 the men the state needs to train in collegiate courses for profes- 

 sional work in its agriculture with a surplus for National service 

 along this line. 



These schools should graduate from high school courses a thou- 

 sand of the farm youth every year or 35,000 every generation. We 

 will doubt that such a body of people trained in rural business and 

 country home-making would not push Pennsylvania agriculture to 

 altitudes not yet dreamed of? Would sucii an army of people 

 trained in country-life education stop short of a splendidly organized 

 system of a thousand consolidated rural schools and as many well- 

 developed single-room schools in isolated mountain districts? From 

 this body of young people what a splendid corps of teachers could 

 be provided to install countrv life education in these rural schools. 



Under this plan a city of 100,000 population would receive $10,000 

 to which it would add at least an equal amount to be used in studies 

 in the mechanic arts and in the household industries. Thus the 

 city schools of Pennsylvania would not only grade up the efficiency 

 of the industrial workers and home-makers, but would send to the 

 mechanic arts' collegiate courses in State College, or at the Univer- 

 sity of Pennsylvania and other colleges offering engineering courses 

 young men better self-selected and better trained to go forward 

 in their preparation for the engineering professions. Even the 

 other collegiate courses of these institutions would be benefitted 

 by having a better selection of youth to enter the collegiate, scien- 

 tific, literary, theological and related courses of study. Besides our 

 modern conditions require that the scientist, the writer and the 

 theologian know the practical sides of the lives of the people for 

 whom they experiment, write and preach. 



With large public funds thus provided for the practical in educa- 

 tion, the less expensive but hardly less important line of education 

 in home economics would receive the impetus it so richly deserves. 

 No one who has had an intimate acquaintance with the develop- 

 ments of this line of education during the past twenty years will 

 doubt the assertion that 10 per cent, of the large sums of money 

 suggested for industrial education if applied to instruction in home 

 economics in all the public secondary schools as thus suggested 

 for city and country would easily bring back to the people more than 

 the entire coBt. 



