156 ANNUAL REPORT 



deliver a speech on education. He commenced by saying that our 

 present system was from beginning to end a rank heresy. The 

 great question to be solved in this country was that of bread and 

 butter, and it was our business to teach the boys and girls how to 

 do those things that they are to follow for a livelihood in after life. 

 The boy must learn how to shove a plane, turn a horseshoe, and 

 how to perform the different kinds of work that he may be called 

 upon to do after he leaves school, and he was cheered to the echo. 

 He denounced education for culture, (and by the way he pro- 

 nounced it "culchaw"), but believed in that kind of education that 

 would lead our boys and girls to perform honest labor; that only 

 about one-twentieth of the people were necessary to do the higher 

 work of the country and take care of the government, the work 

 that required a scholastic education. And he said, you need not 

 trouble yourselves about that matter. The necessary twentieth is 

 going to get that education anyway and the public need not tax 

 itself to provide it. I came very near interrupting this speaker to 

 ask how we could be assured that the small percentage of boys 

 and girls which he promised us, would be the ones the nation 

 wanted to do its business. 



He omitted to tell us in which class he expected his own boy to find 

 his place. Now, it is very easy for me to see, — and although the 

 audience cheered at every step, if they had taken a minute's thought 

 it would have been easy for them to see that the fortunate or un- 

 fortunate one-twentieth who were to receive the thorough discipli- 

 nary education would be the twentieth that had rich parents. 

 They would be prepared to do this higher work and it is no matter 

 whether your boy or my boy understands how to do it or not. 

 The second class of agricultural educators hold that the object to 

 be pursued in schools of this character is while giving a thorough 

 drill in the science and art of successful cultivation of the soil at 

 the same time to develop the thinking powers, to put the boys in 

 such a condition that they will be better able to fight their way in 

 the world with more determined purposes and more resolute wills, 

 to endow them with noble independence, with more manly self-reli- 

 ance; to elevate their reasoning powers and strengthen their judg- 

 ment, so that they will be better able to take care of themselves and 

 occupy a higher position both as farmers and as men; that they 

 may become more useful members of society and better citizens of 

 the State, so that they can stand up for their rights and intelli- 

 gently defend them. They are not the true friends of labor who 

 argue that the working classes are simply required to know how 

 to do their daily work in the field or shop and not anything else. 



