No. 4.] AGRICULTURAL KDUCATION. 103 



I was in an academy in New York State tlie other day. It 

 is one hundred and twenty years old, and in the centre of it 

 are a great many apples growing. And a new principal has 

 come into that school. As I went into the school I saw the 

 words "acetic acid," and I also saw the phrase " mother of 

 vinegar," and I asked the principal what he was doing with 

 this plirase on the board. He said : " Well, when the apple 

 picking and the cider making were on, I talked with these 

 children about the mother in vinegar, and in a very simple 

 wa}' of the process that was going on. And it was to those 

 children as though information had dropped out of the heav- 

 ens. Such information had never before been given in that 

 school ; and the children said, ' Why, that isn't the kind of 

 teaching that a school ought to give.' " 



Now, I would not have professional agriculture forced into 

 the schools in any State, — not in the common elementary 

 schools. I do not believe in making any elementary schools 

 professional. I would not want to have medicine taught in 

 the rural schools, nor theology, nor law. I would not w^ant 

 to have agriculture taught as a professional or technical 

 business. We do not teach it so in our college of agricul- 

 ture, wiiere I am ; that is to say, we do not say to the young 

 men, "Come up here, — we are going to make you farm- 

 ers ; " but we do say, " Farm young men, come up and let 

 us give you an education." 



I would put this new type of education on a broader basis. 

 Let those schools that need or choose to take it up, take it 

 up ; and I would not have it the privilege only of rural 

 schools, but of all schools. If any school in any city wants 

 to teach agriculture, I should be just as glad to have it 

 taught there as in any school in the country. 



In Illinois a large part of the schools in twenty-nine coun- 

 ties are teaching agriculture. The syllabus of the agricultural 

 work in Illinois com})rises something like thirteen pages, I 

 think, in the general course of instruction. I am going to 

 read you the reason why the Illinois people have put it in 

 the school, and I want you to note it w^as not necessarily 

 for the purpose of turning those schools into agricultural 

 schools. The public schools should teach the fundamental 



