TENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IV 111 



Q. Well, aren't they like the boy who invited George Washing- 

 ton and his whole army to dinner — haven't they attempted too 

 much? 



Mr. Wallace: Yes, I think so, but I think we are getting on 

 the right track in two or three counties in this State. In Page 

 county, where Miss Jessie Field is superintendent, the reputation is 

 such that they had seventeen state superintendents from the South 

 come up to look over h^r schools and work. ]Mr. Benson has done 

 fine work in Wright county, Capt. ]\Iiller in Keokuk county, and 

 there is some splendid work being done by ]\Ir. Brainerd in Harrison 

 county. With our present laws, if you get the right kind of a 

 superintendent, a great deal can be done toward teaching agricul- 

 ture in the schools; but I wouldn't want it taught from the text- 

 book, because then the ordinary teacher would pound it into the 

 ])upils just as you would pound sand into a rathole, and disgust 

 them, just as we used to be disgusted with the Shorter Catchism. It 

 was useful afterwards, but after all it didn 't give a very great taste 

 for matters theological. My idea is that we want teachers who can 

 teach agriculture in the spirit of the farm. Miss Field out there 

 lias the children bring in some milk, and she tests it and finds out 

 the percentage of butter fat. She has them compare the amount 

 of milk given by one cow with that given by another; and she can 

 make out any amount of questions. The same with testing seed 

 corn and encouraging the children to profit by that. She shows 

 them how to get things into their heads, not from the outside, but 

 to see things themselves ; and all good education is simply enabling 

 a man to see the thing as it is and then to tell it as he sees it. 

 Somebody said that a man who can shoot and tell the truth is a 

 pretty well educated man. The main thing in education is to see 

 things, and a teacher with the right spirit can do a great deal in 

 that line. 



I heard a funny story the other day. A friend of mine had his 

 little granddaughter come to visit him, and he tried to find out 

 how much she knew about potatoes. So he started in to ask her 

 questions — add so many to so many and subtract so many — you all 

 know how the ciuestions read in the arithmetic. She couldn't do 

 it, and she broke down and he scolded her. "Well, grandpa," she 

 said, "if you had put that in oranges instead of potatoes, I could 

 have done it. " The trouble with our schools is our arithmetic. You 

 haven't teachers, as a rule, that really know things on the farm 

 and are willing to teach in the spirit of the farm. I don't blame 



