38 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



and people who both think and do. We need this last class, and I sym- 

 pathize with those who seem to think that we need more school work 

 that teaches pupils to do as well as to think. But anyone who has looked 

 over the attempts to introduce agriculture into primary school work, 

 must be compelled to admit that all these efforts so far have been failures. 

 I think there are two reasons for this. First, the material for study is 

 beyond the pupil's capacity in the lower grades; and second, teachers 

 themselves have not sufficiently digested the materials of study, and are 

 not qualified to properly teach agriculture. 



But there are some things along this line that may be done. We are 

 going to try an experiment in Wisconsin this 3ear. In connection with 

 our Arbor Day program we shall send out a lesson on the proper treat- 

 ment for oat smut. We shall ask every teacher in Wisconsin to learn this 

 lesson, and to teach it to every pupil in the schools. Now this disease 

 of oat smut it has been estimated costs Wisconsin farmers |G, 000, 000 a 

 year, and if we can succeed in reaching the children, and through the 

 children reaching the parents in this practical money-saving way, it is 

 possible we can demonstrate that something can be done along the line 

 of teaching agTiculture in the rural schools. 



But we must have an education for the country boys and girls by the 

 district schools, and we must have it of the right kind, for if the boys 

 and girls from rural schools do go to the high schools, they do not get 

 what they need. What I would like to see is a school that shall take boys 

 and girls from the country schools and give them about two years work, 

 not in ordinary school work, but in things more practical. I should want 

 to see the boys taught the elements of agriculture, taught about soils and 

 their properties, and how they should be nmuaged, taught about plants,— 

 not the ordinary botany of the text book, not science, but practical farm 

 botany, how crops grow, how to meet crop diseases. I should want boys 

 taught how to feed stock, how to breed stock, how to care for stock in 

 health and disease. 



Now we have talked this thing up in Wisconsin, and last winter the 

 legislature passed a. law creating two schools of this character. The 

 state gives one-half the expense for the school ; the county the other half. 

 These two schools are to be opened this fall, and we are now working on 

 the course of stud3^ Several other counties are eager for just such 

 schools, and they will come in time. 1 want to say further about these 

 schools, that while the kind of training found in them is intended to be 

 of practical use, it is a kind of training that is good for anybody's chil- 

 dren. We shall have simple farm accounts taught, manual training, so 

 that the boys may learn to use properly farm tools and farm machinery. 

 For the girls we shall have courses in home making and domestic economy. 

 We now leave out of the schools those things that girls will use most; 

 indeed we leave out those things that they will use nearly every moment 

 of their lives. I am aware of the ravages of intemperance, and I should 

 like to see the day when it can be done away with, but I agree with the 

 man who said that more people are ruined by indigestion than by strong- 

 drink. I attend farmers' institutes in Wisconsin, and I hear men talking 

 intelligently about balanced rations for their cows, and I notice farmers 

 are deeply interested in these discussions. But isn't it strange that they 

 are so little interested in balanced rations for themselves and children? 

 Now the girls in these schools will learn just these things. We know 



