164 The State and the Farmer 



that the spirit and method of the institution 

 is what sends the youth back to the land. 



Of course this new school method will de- 

 mand trained teachers, but it should be no 

 more difficult to train them into this point of 

 view than as mere specialists.* The whole 

 enterprise needs to be developed natively and 

 from a new point of view; for in an agricul- 

 tural country agriculture should be as much a 

 part of the school as oxygen is a part of the 

 air. I would not isolate agriculture from the 

 environment of life in order to teach it : I 

 would teach the entire environment. 



The agricultural colleges and experiment stations. 



Ten, or even five, years ago I might have 

 said that there were need of redirection in the 

 agricultural work of the colleges of agriculture 

 and mechanic arts, but happily these institutions 

 have now slipped their academic bonds. They 

 are getting hold of the real objects and the real 



* My own view of the ways to secure teachers for these sub- 

 jects is expressed in Bulletin No. i, 1908, of the United States 

 Bureau of Education, "On the Training of Persons to Teach 

 Agriculture in the Public Schools." 



