42 



be Ijvouglit into the public schools from the very start, and that it ought to 

 have its place in the first form just as well as in the last form. It is a most 

 remarkable thing how the agricultural questions of this country — and when 

 I speak of this country I mean the United States and Canada— how the 

 agricultural questions in North America have been approached, so to speak, 

 wrong end to. In the olden days the great educational facilities were all confined 

 to the monasteries, and gradually, as they opened their doors, the men who 

 were to l)e fitted for the professions were admitted. Education for the common 

 people was not at first considered necessary or important, (iradually, how- 

 ever, the educational facilities have been extended, and now everybody can 

 get an education for that which he requires. Wheu we came to apply this 

 statement or this principle to our educational work, see again how we have 

 turned it round. The first great movement in favor of agricultural education 

 has been known as the farmers' institute, now to l)e found in every State and 

 every Province of the Dominion. And yet take yourselves as members of the 

 farmers' institute. You as young men, you as young women, I venture to 

 say, had little or no opportunity to get what might be termed an agricultural 

 education, an education that particularly and specially fitted you for your 

 work. You had become men and women before you were enabled to take part 

 in this great agricultural movement. That is, we have begun our great educa- 

 tional movement, our great educational improvement, by trying to inqirove the 

 men and the women of mature years. You say. What about our agricultural 

 colleges? You have only to consider this: That the agricultural college can 

 merely touch the fringe of the great agricultural community. You have, iu 

 your State, for instance, an agricultural college capable of acconnnodating 

 200, 300, 400, or even 500, we will say. Calculating the number of farmers 

 that you have in your State you will see how miniy farmers' homes you can 

 directly touch through the agricultural college. For instance, in the Province 

 of Ontario we have IT.l.OdO farmers. Last year in all our classes, general and 

 special, we had an attendance of over 700. Now, take 175,000 farm homes. 

 There will be at least 350,0* m» farmers' sons and daughters. What are the 

 700 hundred out of the great mass of 350,000? It is simply touching one 

 young man here and one young man there, doing a very im])ortant work and, 

 perhai)s, the best work that can be done, in teaching these young men and 

 then sending them out, back to teach their neighbors, putting them in touch 

 with their neighbors and helping on the movement; but what of the ninety 

 and nine, so to speak, that have not been reached :it all? We have reached 

 the farmers through the farmers' institutes, and we have reached the farmers' 

 wives through the women's institute, and we have reached some of the boys 

 and girls through the agricultural college. But if we are to do this work 

 thoroughly and well, if we are to jtermeate the whole agricultural mass of the 

 community, we have to get down lower, we have to get our work more wide- 

 spread, we have to get into the imblic schools, not at the fifth form or the fourth 

 form, but at the second and first forms, and begin the work from the ground up. 

 Who would think of beginning the erection of a building by putting on the 

 roof first and tlu'u liuilding downward? Now. is not that just what we have 

 done in our agricuUnial work? The wonder is we have succeeded as well as 

 we have in the work, beginning as we have in this irrational way (»f doing the 

 work. Perhaps it was the only way— the best way iu which we could begin. 

 But we have made our lieginning; we have proven what can be done. Now, it 

 seems to me that all through the States of this country and through the Prov- 

 inces we should lend our efforts to this one great question of how we can i-ation- 

 ally and scientifically and proi)erly begin the ui>building of our agricultural 

 counuunity by educating the boys and girls, rather than the fathers and mothers. 



