SCIENCE AND EDUCATION 53 
Down on the farm where everything is supposed to be so pure, 
fresh and healthful, we more often find filth resulting from 
garbage undisposed of, open privies, and other sources, so that 
one is continuously exposed to typhoid, hookworm, and 
diarrhea through the well known channels of infection. 
These conditions it seems to me are directly chargeable to 
the lack of an educational policy intended specifically to over- 
come them. 
The agriculturists are doing more and succeeding better in 
disseminating the facts which we hope are destined to trans- 
form farming from an empirical practice to a scientific pro- 
cedure. 
As the result of state and national aid the agricultural ex- 
perts have gone directly to the adult population and with much 
tact and persistency have demanded a hearing. No such in- 
clusive campaign has ever before been attempted in American 
education. The results, in so far as the results of an educa- 
tional campaign can be judged, have justified the effort and the 
expenditure of public money. There is, however, much remain- 
ing to be done. There are legions of farmers living contentedly 
in their sins. They plant their crops by the moon, operate on 
their stock according to the signs of the zodiac, and carry buck- 
eyes to ward off disease. Many of these individuals have been 
in contact with the truth, but they have passed the formative 
period of their lives and their habits have become fixed. They 
may even assent intellectually to the teachings of the experts, 
but they have not the power to adjust themselves to the new 
methods. They go calmly on doing as their fathers did while 
the average yield of crops thruout the country is only from 
one-third to one-half what it would be if the average farmer 
knew and applied the available knowledge on plant production. 
As propaganda the course which has been pursued by the agri- 
culturists has produced wonderful results, but as a fixed edu- 
cational policy it has many elements of weakness. The great- 
est good has come, not from the regeneration of the adult 
population, but from the number of young people who have 
been influenced to enter the schools and take up a systematic 
and thorough study of agricultural science. 
