EARLY ACTION OF MASSACHUSETTS. 359 



.CHAPTER XXV. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 



&quot; The ten commandments and a handicraft make a good and wholesome equipment to com 

 mence life with. A man must learn to stand upright upon his own feet, to respect himself, to 

 be independent of charity or accident. Ic is only on this basis that any superstructure of in 

 tellectual cultivation worth having can possibly be built.&quot; Froude. 



FIRST URGED BY MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY MANUAL OP AGRICULT 

 URE PREPARED ACTION TAKEN BY OTHER STATES OBSTACLES TO SUCCESS 

 PROFESSOR TURNER ON TEXT-BOOK MONOPOLIES SUPERINTENDENT NORTHRUP S 

 VIEWS ON THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF LABOR. 



IT MUST be conceded by all, that one of the greatest obstacles 

 to the farmer s progress has been a defective and unsuitable 

 education, and that the specific training required to lift his 

 calling to a level with the highest of human occupations, is not 

 to be obtained without an appeal to the ballot-box. Since the 

 year 1860, the importance of industrial education in general, 

 and of agricultural instruction in our common schools, has been 

 urged upon the public by teachers eminent for broad and en 

 lightened views, and by equally eminent farmers, trained in all 

 the learning of our higher institutions. The Massachusetts 

 State Board of Agriculture gave, fifteen years ago. the follow 

 ing reasons for asking the State Legislature for the passage of 

 an act authorizing the introduction of a Manual of Agriculture 

 into all the schools of the commonwealth: 



The foundation for the intelligent pursuit of every business is laid 

 in our common school system. So far as it goes, it answers every 

 purpose, and if any complaint could be made, it would be, perhaps&quot;, 

 that it aimed at too much that some things are taught that might 

 better be omitted. One fact, however, is certain, that nothing is 

 taught in our public schools which have any special bearing upon 

 the future education of that large class whose lives are devoted to 

 the cultivation of the soil, and stranger still, this class is the only 

 one that cannot get the special instruction necessary for it anywhere 

 else. There are private schools, academies, and colleges for the 

 education of youth for other callings in life, but not for the farm 

 er, who requires, more that any other class, a special training for 

 his profession. The fact that the greater proportion of all labor is 

 farm labor, seems to have been overlooked in the studies prescribed 

 in the common schools. The simple teachings which appeal to the 

 daily senses and to natural objects, have been too much neglected. 

 Without desiring to go into a minute criticism upon the instruction 

 which is afforded, we claim a place for agriculture in the system of 

 public education; and assert the right to have introduced a few 



