INTRODUCTION 3 



is probably the most important source of information 

 and advice. Personal friends, to whom one can trust his 

 plans for suggestive and curative advice, are most im- 

 portant agencies to be employed with conservative free- 

 dom by farmers whose isolation makes necessary an 

 effort to measure their plans through the minds of others. 

 Giving suggestions to a friend is one of the opportunities 

 for doing good ; and every true man and woman sacredly 

 keeps confidences given while another is asking advice. 

 Technical education in agriculture. Schools to pro- 

 mote the professions have long been organized. More 

 recently, schools for the business vocations and for the 

 mechanical trades are being established; schools of 

 agriculture, which earlier proved difficult of develop- 

 ment, have in recent years been made to succeed, and 

 schools of household economics have been even later 

 in their development. Schools designed to give instruc- 

 tion in agriculture and farm home making have as won- 

 derful possibilities in building up rural business and 

 country life as have schools of medicine in advancing 

 the cause of preventive and curative medicine. Schools 

 which teach agriculture are most useful to those persons 

 who are so fortunate as to receive the advantages they 

 afford before settling down to life's business of home 

 making and farming. These schools have also a very 

 great value in giving dignity, profit, and comfort to farm- 

 ers as a class, and in providing more and cheaper farm 

 products for all classes of people. These schools teach 

 the underlying principles which govern farm and home 

 management and add to the practical knowledge which 

 every farm boy or girl acquires in youth. Many of the 

 erroneous notions gained from the experiences of one 

 isolated farm, or from practical people who sometimes 

 have wrong theories, are here corrected. By coming in 

 daily contact with able teachers and bright fellow-stu- 

 dents, the boy or girl from the farm is enabled to obtain a 



