266 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



and it must train them for the farm, the shop, and the home, and for 

 useful and honorable citizenship, if their education ends with the high 

 school. 



The city high school needs are not materially different. Eventually 

 they will be put upon the same basis. Some city high schools will come 

 immediately to this standard by providing specially trained teachers and 

 fields and laboratories, and grain and stock and all necessary facilities 

 for making the work useful, practical and scientific; and some will 

 merely make provision for a little more general science and call it 

 agricultural or industrial training. Such schools will continue to lose 

 pupils. 



Our government has no greater problem than that of providing the 

 right kind of education for its people. President Roosevelt said, "It is a 

 reproach to us as a nation that we have permitted our training to lead 

 children away from the farm and the shop instead of toward them." A 

 representative of the German government said, in addressing a meeting 

 of American educators a few weeks ago, "Every farmer"s boy in Ger- 

 many, whether rich or poor, and every hired man has the opportunity 

 of studying in the public schools the principles underlying the successful 

 practice of agriculture and the trades and industries." The investiga- 

 tions of Germany's trained scientific men, coupled with the national policy 

 of vocational education in the public schools, has given to that country 

 the foremost place among the industrial nations of the world. It is not 

 the competition of ignorant labor that the American farmer or manufac- 

 turer need fear. It is the competition of the intelligent laborer and the 

 educated farmer and mechanic in foreign countries that will be hardest 

 to meet. 



We have come to a period when vocational education must have 

 a permanent place in our public school system. It is essential to the 

 training of the farm boy and it will be of equal benefit to the city boy. 

 It is not necessary that the country and city schools be differentiated. 

 The essential thing is, that the work of the schools be properly directed 

 to meet the modern needs of both communities. It would be better that 

 some of these vocational schools be established in the country, for two 

 reasons: First, they will find there the right environment and the right 

 purpose and spirit for successful work; and, second, the country senti- 

 ment and interest will center about such a school and it will more 

 strongly attach country people to the farm instead of taking them away 

 from the farm, as is the tendency where the country is dependent upon 

 the city for schools. The contention on the part of some educators 

 that the city schools can furnish all the vocational education required 

 is a short-sighted policy and an educational fallacy. The proper place 

 for the country school is in the country and it ought to be made so effi- 

 cient that there will be no need of the pupil leaving the country until 

 he is ready for higher grade work than the country school offers. There 

 is no cause for alarm over the proposal to establish a few special agri- 

 cultural high schools in the country for the country needs. These schools 

 will help to work out the vocational education problem more rapidly 



