Agriculture and Its Needs 31 



to become interested in them. I know of 

 many things which look to quickening and 

 dignifying the different agricultural indus- 

 tries, in which the children of farmers are 

 likely to find interest and which are not 

 incompatible with the plan and purpose of 

 the elementary schools, and I am for intro- 

 ducing them into the course of study; but 

 I confess that I am unable to see the reason- 

 ableness or the practicability of teaching real 

 agriculture, any more than engineering or 

 medicine in the elementary schools. Ag- 

 riculture is not an elementary subject. 



We are asked to have the normal schools 

 train teachers of agriculture for the ele- 

 mentary and secondary schools. Some of 

 the normal school teachers know something 

 about some of the sciences that are funda- 

 mental to agriculture, and some of them 

 know something about some of the prac- 

 tical methods of farming, although I suspect 



