24 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



and all the time that in training people for industrial service, 

 for industrial service of society, you must have a basis of gen- 

 eral resourcefulness, general intelligence, gumption, to use an 

 old word ; I know of no better. And I will go a step further 

 and say that the next great source of difficulty in modern times 

 is that our boys haven't the training in general resourceful- 

 ness, of general intelligence in their heads, general gumption, 

 which life on a farm was eminently fitted to produce if a boy 

 had it in him at all. Of course, there are some boys who are 

 so awkward that they could not use an ax, could not rig up a 

 makeshift to meet an emergency even if they lived eighty 

 years on a farm, but if a boy has any sense at all, if he has 

 any power of developing the resources of hand and brain to 

 meet unexpected emergencies, I know of no better training 

 than the every-day training of hard-working fann life to lay 

 that foundation of education. 



I believe in manual training as it is conducted today. I 

 believe in many of the developments of the public school as 

 they are conducted today, but I also think that manual training 

 is sometimes a very poor substitute to give to the city boy for 

 a sort of training that he would get as a matter of course if 

 he grew up on a farm, and that is what I mean by speaking 

 of the farm as an educational institution, and all the better as 

 an educational institution because it was made by the hand of 

 God and not by some act of the legislature or school board. I 

 remember that some one said, in speaking of family discipline, 

 that a baby was a better instrument to make older brothers 

 and sisters unselfish than any system of rules that could ever 

 be adopted, because the children always thought that the rules 

 were arbitrary, that somebody had made them, and could just 

 as well unmake them, but a baby was an obvious and irrevoca- 

 ble fact that had to be taken into account quick. School 

 education is subjected to good rules. It is good method, but 

 farm education, after all, has the advantage that it is full from 

 sunrise to sunset of obvious and irrevocable facts that have to 



