308 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



effect — to put the brains in the city and the brawn in the country. 

 It was not strange that under conditions such as these thinking- 

 men first denied higher education to their young because of its in- 

 evitable consequences, and then came to demand a form of educa- 

 tion that should really serve the needs of industrial people as well 

 as those of professional people. In this way arose the separate in- 

 dustrial schools, but later experience has shown that one extreme 

 is as bad as the other — that industrial training without education 

 is but little better than education without industry, and that both 

 will inevitably result in a most unfortunate sorting process; both 

 alike will prevent that natural flow from one profession or mode 

 of life to another, so essential to meet the natural desires of indi- 

 viduals, and to secure that homogeneousness of population with 

 which only institutions such as ours are safe, or even possible. 



Though it is true that educators did not lead in the movement 

 for industrial education, it is true that they were quick to see its 

 significance, and today it is our greatest educators and our best 

 teachers who are the most earnest disciples of the doctrine that a 

 system of universal education should fit for all the needful activi- 

 ties of a highly civilized race, to the neglect of none and to the 

 prejudice of none. 



And this is a perfectly stupendous problem. Think of its new 

 complications ! In the old days all that was necessary was to main- 

 tain whatever schools could win support and teach the things most 

 easily taught without much regard to the consequences. Now in 

 these days of universal education we must teach what the world 

 needs to know for all its essential activities, and we must so conduct 

 our schools as not to greatly disturb the economic or social balance 

 of things ; so conduct them that the overflow from one occupation 

 or class shall be naturally compensated by a corresponding inflow 

 of equally desirable individuals from others — all of which is neces- 

 sary if universal education is to be an unmixed blessing. 



4. Secondary schools devoted solely to agriculture would of 

 necessity cover so much territory as to require the students to board 

 and room away from home. This for students of the high school 

 age is unthinkable. Every boy and every girl in the early and 

 middle "teens" should sleep every night under the father's roof, 

 and this can be if a community establishes a single school capable 

 of catering to all its needs, and does not insist upon educating one 

 class here and another there, compelling long journeys to get to 

 the right school. A single agricultural school in ten counties, or in 

 five counties, or in one county — think of it! 



