86 ADVENTURES IN IDEALISM 



"Mv DEAR JUDGE: 



"I am so glad that you are considering an industrial 

 and agricultural school in connection with the public 

 school. If I am not mistaken, Woodbine would be 

 the first place in this State where public education 

 would be carried on upon such an improved basis. 

 From the lowest grades up our children will be taught 

 to become useful and self-supporting members of the 

 community. An agricultural education is the more 

 necessary for them, who have not the inherited senti- 

 ments of the farmer's son, which often saves him for 

 the rural life. We have to implant an industrial and 

 agricultural spirit in our children, and this will take 

 from our race some of the blame we are subjected to 

 in the world. Many western agricultural colleges 

 have introduced a system of paying five to ten cents 

 an hour for work in the fields or in the shop, in order 

 to enable the boys and girls to earn a little money, and 

 thus partly lift the burden from the parents' shoulders 

 during their schooling. If we introduce such a system 

 into our schools, we shall save our girls of thirteen and 

 fourteen years of age from the factories, inasmuch 

 as they will earn $1.50 to $2.50 a week, an amount 

 large enough to pay their parents for their board. 

 Especially in field and garden work we may expect 

 some returns." 



A few months later he wrote to Dr. Julius Goldman 

 on the same subject, and, among other things, says: 



"Farming is becoming an art and a science, and I 

 do not doubt that our government will soon see that 

 secondary schools should have agricultural and in- 

 dustrial departments." 



