602 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



of the man who can do things with his hands. Whom do we hold up as 

 models before the children? We select the bank president, the railroad 

 magnate, the millionaire manufacturer, and say, "Here is a kind of man for 

 you to emulate, not because he did so much for others but because he has a 

 great fortune." Say what we will, we must admit the truth that our only 

 standard success in life in these latter days has been the financial standard, 

 and the motto we continually keep before our eyes is, "Get money. It 

 matters little how you get it, but get it at any cost " With these things 

 supported by our schools, winked at by our churches, and discussed by every 

 newspaper, it is not at all surprising that some of our farmer boys and girls 

 think honest labor beneath their dignity, and long for city life where they 

 imagine they can get a good salary, keep their hands clean, wear good 

 clothes, and do little work. 



This is not a fanciful, but a real picture. Here is our problem. How 

 shall we solve it? We can not shirk nor shift it. We have helped to create 

 it, let us now help to destroy it. It will require time and effort, but let us 

 not be discouraged for the ' 'good can well afford to wait." It is only the 

 evil that can brook no delay. When the man of learning shall take his 

 poorer arid less fortunate brother by the hand, when clean work shall take 

 its rightful place in our civilization, when brainpan muscle shall each 

 recognize the others honored sphere, when strenght, simplicity and sincerity 

 shall govern our hearts and homes, then we can hope that our boys and girls 

 will see the beauty of the country life, its homelj- dignity and honorable 

 independence and shall deem it no disgrace or sacrifice to be a tiller of the 

 soil for God watereth and giveth the increase. 



PRO'S AND CON'S IN RURAL EDUCATION. 



y. H. Jacobs, Superintendent of Public Schools of Scott County, Before 

 Scott County Farmers' Institute. 



The subject originally selected for me to discuss at this meeting was 

 Pro's and Con's in Rural Education. But the programme which appeared 

 subsequently gives me the whole field of education. After spending a little 

 time contemplating the enormous extent of ground to be covered and the 

 enormous difficulties to be encountered I appointed myself a committee to 

 limit the subject to rural education. 



I understood Mr. Lau, who is your secretary, I believe, to say when I 

 suggested that I might speak on "alterations" of various kinds that are 

 offered from different sources as a panacea for the ills of the rural schools, 

 that the farmers do not like to have these proposed changes discussed. I 

 concluded almost immediately, probably rashly, that this matter should 

 receive attention since my name was to appear on the programme. But I am 

 of the opinion that it is not discussion of suggested improvements that is not 

 received with favor, but the unqualified advocating of them; and if this is 

 true we shall not be plunged into any serious altercations over the attempt 



