862 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



from you. Should there he one here \A^ho agrees with us altogether but 

 would like to have the points argued a little more fully, let him do like 

 a member of the jury sometimes does, and take the other side of the 

 -question for awhile at least. This is not a theoretical question but a 

 practical one; a question on which action may soon be taken, and on which 

 action is now being taken. It will depend on you and me as well as others 

 how we shall teach agriculture in the public schools as well as how much 

 of it, or whether we shall teach it at all. I therefore invite you all, far- 

 mer or not, to join in a family discussion of this very practical and im- 

 portant question. 



SHOULD THE COUNTRY BOY GO TO COLLEGE. 



J. F. WOJTA, NICOLET COUNTY, MINNESOTA, IN BREEDERS' GAZETTE. 



I 



The question is often asked, "Why should the country boy go to 

 college." From the outset the country boy is not differently constituted, 

 physically or mentally, by nature, from his city brother. But the country 

 boy's location on the farm, his occupation and his environment cause in 

 him a development of certain attributes such as will be of great advant- 

 age to him. He is taught patience, sympathy, honesty, obedience, and 

 above all, in a large measure, has established in him the fundamentals 

 that go to make up good character. 



The boy possessed with these qualities needs to develop them by 

 training so that he may make the best use of himself in life. No college 

 can make a great man or a genius out of a boy who is not possessed 

 with the qualities that would make him great. A college does not create 

 faculties but it directs the development of them. A college represents a 

 personal process and a result which may be termed self-discovery. Many 

 boys go to college with definite ideas to become great lawyers, ministers 

 or farmers, but often the intending lawyer becomes a farmer and the 

 intending farmer becomes a lawyer or a doctor. 



In the college the country boy will learn to know himself. He will 

 learn to know his strength, his weaknesses, his ambitions and his pur- 

 poses. It is well to have a definite aim, for it promotes rapidity of 

 endeavor. A country boy who supplements his practical training with 

 the theoretical knowledge obtained in college wdll be self-reverent. He 

 will put himself into relationship with other men with history, and with 

 the various complex problems which American life is to solve in the 

 future. A college training will lead the country boy to observe and to 

 think what the farm has taught him to do, thus combining these ideas 

 and making them active and effective. Such training will not only fit him 

 for better service in the community but, wherever may be his field of 

 labor, it will make a better citizen of him. College training largely is a 

 force which added to the natural force of many men has helped to 

 constitute their great growth. 



