No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 317 



In our rural districts, however, as in our cities, we do something 

 besides live in homes. Their material needs must be supplied and 

 that necessitates a directly lucrative occupation. Now the one busi- 

 ness upon which all people, whether dwellers in the open country or in 

 crowded cities depend is that carried on in our rural communities, — 

 agriculture. Stop that, and how would the people of this land live? 

 Financially, it is worth more in this State than are all the other oc- 

 cupations combined, including mining and the oil industry. Is it not 

 a business, therefore, for which there should be definite preparation 

 in the schools where the future farmers and farmers' wives are being 

 trained for intelligent citizenship. How can agriculture develop, how 

 can it keep the place it should hold, that of our foremost industry, un- 

 less the people who engage in it are as well-trained as are the people 

 encraged in other occupations? 



The reason, then, for the study of Home Economics and Agricul- 

 ture in our rural schools is to increase the power of the rural districts 

 by giving to the boys and girls such a thorough mastery of their busi- 

 ness that they will realize its importance and will more readily remain 

 on the farms. It must be recognized that one reason why young 

 people are flocking to cities is that they feel that farming and house- 

 keeping are drudgery and that there is no chance to "rise." There is 

 always a chance to rise when one is studying his work and making 

 it progressively better. 



in addition to introducing these technical branches, our rural 

 schools should also better relate their present courses of study to 

 the facts and interests of daily life, so that education may not lead 

 away from the home, but toward it. A problem in arithmetic is of as 

 great educational value when it deals with the division of the income 

 of a family in such a way as to allow the proper proportion for food, 

 for clothing and for housing, as when it deals with the proportionate 

 amount of capital invested by the several partners of a business firm. 

 Attention can be called to matters pertinent to the welfare of family 

 and of livestock if other problems set the children to fificurinij the re- 

 quired amount of nitrogenous food in a balanced ration either for 

 man or for beast. A*geography lesson can be made interesting in it- 

 self and may be related to matters of daily life if, instead of being re- 

 quired to learn mere lists of exports, imports and agricultural pro- 

 ducts of China, Japan and other distant lands, the children are at 

 the same time, given instruction as to the uses of some of these ex- 

 ports in our own households, for instance tea, coffee, rice and sugar; 

 or if they taught something of the agricultural methods employed in 

 other countries. This suggests that in raising the standard of our 

 rural schools, we are not asked to put out of the curriculum the com- 

 mon branches which all recognize as necessary, in order to teach some 

 subjects which many people feel are distinctly "new fangled" and un- 

 necessary. On the contrary, the aim should be to co-ordinate all the 

 work so that it shall be of the greatest practical value. 



This is not the time or place to take up in further detail the courses 

 of study. We can merely indicate in general the chief needs of our 

 schools. Later speakers will present methods for instruction in agri- 

 culture. All that I can hope to do is to urge you most strongly to in- 

 troduce into every school, courses in Domestic Science and kindred 

 subjects. The first objection to this is that matters pertaining to the 



