690 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Fortunately, we have had brought before us tonight already the three 

 great elements that enter Into education — the church, that appeals to the 

 spiritual life of man; the school, that teaches him how to think and act 

 as a rational being, and the family, wherein he works out day by day 

 the plan of life. All these things must enter into life and unto the educa- 

 tion of the man on the farm, as well as the man in town. 



Before taking up the question of normal schools we will look at the 

 training of the different branches of these educational institutions. Rural 

 education is a particular subject, and we must have different kinds of 

 institutions to make a full system of rural education. Within the past 

 week I have attended the semi-centennial of the first agricultural college 

 of this country and we have had brought before us very vividly the cause 

 of forwarding the work of our agricultural colleges, which stand at the 

 head of our system of rural education. We are training laborers for the 

 upbuilding of the nation along agriculture lines. We will have a great 

 place in the world along these lines, and this is only one plea among 

 many in the claim for rural education. 



Today I spent a few hours at the National Farm School, near Doyles- 

 town, in this State, where we have an institution which is training city 

 boys to be farmers. Now, that is an important evolution, and it seems to 

 me they are doing it very well there to a limited number of boys from 

 the town. There is, as you know, a considerable movement of the people 

 from the city to the country, and we will all undoubtedly agree that there 

 is a place for this farm school for city boys, but in between the agricultural 

 college and this farm school for city people there is a great loss to our 

 country people, and we must have other institutions to give them the 

 education they need to fit them for country life, and so I wish to speak 

 tonight briefly concerning this phase of rural education, which we should 

 have in connection with the common schools and the secondary schools. 



It will not be necessary now to state why we should have a change in 

 the common schools of the country, but I will say simply that the chief 

 preliminary is to so grade our common schools that they will adapt them- 

 selves to the education, the elementary educational study of the modern 

 phases of country life. The conditions under which you are farming, as 

 the older members of this assembly at least will strongly recognize, are 

 quite different from the conditions which existed in the country in past 

 years. Now, to make these country schools what they should be, it is not, 

 in my judgment, necessary that we reorganize our school system. We 

 should rather build on what we already have, and make such changes from 

 time to time as will strengthen our schools and make them better adapted 

 to modern conditions. Some of the changes, however, which I think will 

 necessarily come in the character of these schools are very important in 

 their character. For example, the course of study in our country schools 

 has been one that has tended to draw people away from the country into 

 the city. That has come about naturally enough, because the teachers 

 in these schools have mostly been educated along these lines which are 

 best adapted to city conditions, and we must change that; we must bring 

 into these schools teachers in touch with country life; and country condi- 

 tions, and we must so grade our schools that they will tend to the pro- 



