EIGHTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X. 697 



to produce, and he must have the nerve to cut off or change that which 

 does not realize a profit. 



Not only this, but as the making of money is not the final end of the 

 farmer's existence, though an important one, there must be a broad and 

 kindly spirit which will enable the farmer to enjoy life and help others 

 to do the same. The rural delivery enables the farmer to have his daily 

 paper at his noon-day meal and so keep in touch with all the world. He 

 must be prepared to act on the school board, or go to the Legislature if 

 his neighbors think best, and be a leader in the community. If these 

 points which I have mentioned are essential to a farmer's success from 

 a financial, social and political standpoint, what kind of an education will 

 he require? I can imagine someone saying, "That would mean a college 

 education, with half a dozen years in the graduate schools." While I 

 do not agree with the sentiment that a college education will ruin a good 

 farmer, and would go so far in the opposite direction as to say that every 

 good farmer would be improved by a college education, nevertheless I 

 believe that public schools should furnish an opportunity to every farmer's 

 boy and girl to get all the schooling necessary for a successful life upon 

 the farm. What the country boy needs is thorough grounding In the 

 rudimentary elements of knowledge in the several branches of science. 

 Where did the leaders who do the actual work in the cities come from? 

 In the vast majority of cases from the country. 



That he can acquire and use this knowledge is abundantly proven 

 when we look at the leaders in every branch of life today who have come 

 from the farm. No calling is without them, no trade could get along 

 without having its ranks constantly recruited from the country. The 

 education which this condition demands is a thorough common school 

 course devoted mainly to those branches which the schools will use in 

 later life. But you ask. Is such a course possible for a farmer's boy and 

 girl in a rural community? I answer yes; it is. The farmer's boy and 

 girl are entitled to just the same advantages that the children in the 

 towns and cities enjoy; first, because the farmers are the great producers 

 of the wealth. They take it first hand from the earth. As most all other 

 branches of industry are dependent, directly or indirectly, on the farm, 

 what would become of the town if the farmer should disappear? Why 

 do we have great railroads, which have turned themselves into gigantic 

 trusts, if not to haul the produce from the farm? Mills and factories are 

 built to work up the farm products. The iron and steel industries exert 

 to a large extent to house, transport and manufacture that which is 

 yielded by the farm. Let one crop fail over an extended area and every 

 trade and occupation feels the effects. A failure of a single staple crop 

 would mean failure and widespread ruin. Should not, then, those who 

 manage the most important factor in the country's prosperity receive the 

 best education possible? Today every town and village has its high school, 

 and in the cities many of them are better than the colleges were a few 

 years ago, but the country, on which the nation depends for its prosperity, 

 has the same old school that was the pride of the community a century 

 ago. It has the shortest term and the poorest schools. The teachers are 

 the cheapest, and often the most inefficient, the schoolhouse poorer still, 

 while the equipment is the least the law allows. The millions in the 



