No. I.J DAIRY ECONOMICS. L95 



ufacture cloth ; and anything in connection with that is 

 taught in those schools. Now, niv experience and observa- 

 tion is this : that, if we take our children from our towns 

 and put them into city high schools, we have ended their 

 career on the farm nine times out of ten. If there is some- 

 thing they must study different from what they are getting 

 in the high schools in the towns where they are, it may be 

 something to solve the problem how to hold the children on 

 the farm ; and if the State and the cities are spending 

 money there on the textile schools, isn't it fair to assume 

 that the farmer should have something to offset what they 

 are doing? 



Ex-Governor Hoard. I have been a very earnest advo- 

 cate of teaching the elements of agriculture in the common 

 schools, for several 3'ears, and I have been pushing all my 

 energies in that direction, but I ran up against two ob- 

 stacles. One was, the great body of teachers were unwill- 

 ing, because they did not know enough, as they frankly 

 admitted. The farmer opposed it, because he was so afraid 

 it would affect his taxes. But he is not the only sinner in 

 Jerusalem, and it is not because he is a farmer, either. It 

 is because the farmer finds his revenue small. Well, I have 

 been pushing this thing along, and I finally got Professor 

 Harvey, our State superintendent, to take hold of it, and 

 we have held repeated conferences, and gone before the 

 Legislature of the State, and we called the wisest and best 

 of the teachers into the conference to see what could be 

 done, and we have studied what has been done in France 

 and Denmark and Switzerland, and had repeated corre- 

 spondence with Horace Plunkett as to what is being done in 

 Ireland, and we have come to the conclusion you have to 

 teach the teacher first. Therefore we went before the Legis- 

 lature and asked for these training schools, and the first six 

 counties that would make the appropriation should be placed 

 on the list for State aid ; and it was left with these counties 

 whether they should do it, and they are being built. Pro- 

 fessor Harvey has put it into the curriculum of the normal 

 school, and every teacher that passes the examination must 

 pass an examination in the elements of agriculture ; and we 



