92 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



children. Superintendent Harbourt of Andover, Ohio, reports that 

 when he found a farmer soaking his seed potatoes in a solution of 

 formalin and asked him why, he got this reply: "Well, the boy says 

 this will prevent scab, and I am trying to please the boy." He planted 

 these treated potatoes and pleased himself with a fine crop that ful- 

 filled the boy's prediction. 



One farmer, as the result of agricultural teaching in the district 

 school eliminated all the scrubs from his dairy herd and last year sold 

 ten Holstein heifers of his own raising for $1,000. Even the girls in 

 the school could judge a horse's age within one year of when he is 

 "old enough to vote." Farmers come to the school to get boys to 

 show them how to spray and prune their orchards. The agricultural 

 class is the most popular one in the school, and you can 't buj' a second- 

 hand agricultural book in Andover, because they are all preserved for 

 reference in the home library. Three boys have requested to be al- 

 lowed to take the course again because they like the subject better 

 than any other taught. Ever hear of a boy wanting to take Caesar 

 or Latin prose the second year? 



Agriculture and its correlate, domestic science, appeals to the 

 human interest of the boy and girl. It explains things, and so makes 

 rural life worth living for child as well as parent. It furnishes a 

 natural purpose and incentive for the study of other useful subjects in 

 the schools. It revolutionizes the view-point of teacher, pupil, and the 

 whole community, as to the practical, lasting value of good school work. 



I believe I have said and indicated enough to satisfy you that agri- 

 culture vitalizes more school studies than any other subject ever pro- 

 posed. It illumines and gives dignity and value to geography, geology, 

 botany, zoology, physiology, arithmetic, physics, chemistry and history ; 

 and furnishes a motive and application for all useful forms of mental 

 training. A recent agricultural text-book points out its advantages in 

 teaching spelling, reading and literature. 



The average city boy or girl surely misses more than one-half the mean- 

 ing of such poems as "The Barefoot Boy," "Snowbound," "Gray's 

 Elegy," "The Deserted Village," and a score of others that are full of 

 rural allusion. So, for merely cultural and social purposes, the city child 

 ought to have at least the opportunity for agricultural study. If man- 

 ual training is justified in the city school in order that the child may 

 have some opportunity to learn industrial processes that were fonnerly 

 taught in the home, certainly the city school ought also to acquaint its 

 pupils with the broader productive processes upon "wdiich the very life 

 of the community depends. The pedagogical, practical, social and cul- 

 tural reasons for teaching agriculture as the basic industiy of mankind 

 exist alike in all the common schools. 



