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7) 
SCIDNCH AND BDUCATION 
knows the future the material must be drawn from what lies at 
hand and from the knowledge and experience of the present and 
the past. 
The first reason for including agriculture among the materi- 
als employed for the training of the next generation is that it 
is wsesul—the very reason which some would advance for its 
exclusion. 
Historically, utilty has always been the basis of education. 
The non-utilitarian is a later, a very valuable, but a far less 
fundamental consideration than is the useful. 
The primitive teacher is the father and the medicine man. 
Whatever the medicine man may teach of stoicism, of supersti- 
tion, of religion, it is the father who teaches how to trail, to 
kill, how to elude an enemy, how to build a fire in the rain, how 
to run and dive,—in short, how to live as living is defined 
among savages. And the chances of the pupils living are in 
direct proportion to his faithfulness and ability as a learner. 
Sonsidered in the large, education is not different now. 
If we omit the wandering philosopher, the first schools were 
employed to teach definite occupation—the practice of medi- 
cine, the knowledge of law, the teaching and advancing of 
religion. Latterly, we have recognized a longer list of neces- 
sary occupations in which learning may be useful, and among 
these is farming, which for our purpose may be defined as the 
using of the land for the scientific support of human life upon 
the earth. 
It is manifest that the amount of human life which can be 
supported upon the earth and the happiness it may attain are 
in large measure determined by the skill and the scientific 
knowledge with which we use the soil. No apology is due there- 
fore for advancing the argument of utility as the fundamental 
reason for teaching agriculture in our public schools. 
A second reason for including agricultural courses in our 
curriculum is that thereby we connect the schools with real life. 
This connection is hard to make and many a graduate has 
turned out useless only because the school failed to connect its 
its activities with the serious business of living and the student 
