Live Stock Breeders' Association. , 313 



There is no longer an "issue" in education — certainly not con- 

 cerning- the fundamental industries. I am told that in certain re- 

 mote sections of the country some people are still fighting the Civil 

 War, but most of us know that it is over. The old issues are settled 

 and dead and left behind. New ones have arisen to command our 

 attention, and it is unworthy of ourselves to expend our energies 

 on lines of effort long since rendered obsolete. 



Yes, the old issues between the classics and the industries are 

 dead, and the sooner they are forgotten the better. I have been 

 through this educational conflict myself, and I know what it is; 

 but even the old soldier who insists upon fighting the Civil War 

 over again, today, will get no audience. New problems have arisen 

 with the new generation, and this generation proposes to stand on 

 whatever has been gained before and expend its energies in for- 

 ward movements. We do well to imitate its example in this matter. 

 The new issues are constructive. 



9. This demand that agriculture be taught in the public 

 schools is but part of the great modern movement for industrial 

 education. Whoever has lived close to the great heart of the com- 

 mon people, and has his hand upon the pulse cannot fail to have 

 felt the throbbings of this new impulse for more than a generation, 

 or to have detected its first feeble flutterings an hundred years ago. 

 And whether he has had his ear to the ground or not, whether he 

 has lived close to the heart of things or away in the upper at- 

 mospheres, no man can now be ignorant of the great fact that a 

 change is coming over the spirit of the times regarding educational 

 ideals; a change that is fundamental, and whose shadow or whose 

 light, whichever it may be, is full upon us and can no longer be 

 averted or ignored. 



When each community had but one or two educated men — 

 the dominie, the doctor, and perhaps the lawyer, it did not greatly 

 matter what their education might be like; but when everybody 

 learned to read, and to think, which was inevitable, they quickly 

 saw that the system and the subject matter of an education suited 

 to the office and the study were ill-adapted to fit men for the farm 

 and the shop, but exceedingly well adapted to unfit them. They, 

 before the educators, learned that the benefits of education were 

 capable of being extended to all the affairs of life, material as well 

 as intellectual. 



But, as has been repeatedly noted, educators soon caught the 

 true spirit of the new demand and were quick to respond. They 



