No. 4.] AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 115 



Mr. J. T. CoRLEw (of Wayland). I would like to thank 

 Professor Bailey for the suggestions that he made along the 

 lines of geography and arithmetic, especially that idea of 

 substitution of arithmetic, taking out some of those subjects 

 that have been dead and buried for the last fifty years, and 

 putting in their places live issues. And it seems to me that 

 he could have gone a little further, and used the term ' ' elim- 

 ination," for the demands of arithmetic for to-day are not the 

 demands of arithmetic of fifty years ago. To-day we are 

 teaching in our schools two kinds of arithmetic, — mental 

 arithmetic and detrimental arithmetic ; and we are teaching 

 about four detrimentals to one mental. I mean we are teach- 

 ing a lot of stuiF that hasn't any practical value ; and if we 

 could eliminate it, and do what Professor Bailey said, sub- 

 stitute for the dead arithmetic a live arithmetic, we would 

 have more time for nature studv. We would have more 

 time to look at the great book " out doors," which we shut 

 out from the life of the child by a dead world of books. 

 Books are all right in their place, but there is a big book 

 out doors that has all the elements in it for any kind of an 

 education, whether it be arithmetic, language or what. 



Mr. Potter. I would like to ask Professor Bailey his 

 opinion of the results ol)tained in one country in Europe, as 

 he observed them. I have understood, from reading and 

 otherwise, that in Holland agriculture is taught in the pub- 

 lic schools, and that every teacher who applies for a position 

 has to be examined and pass an examination showing that he 

 is competent to teach agriculture as well as other branches of 

 learning. I have also luiderstood that in the theological 

 colleges agriculture is taught, in order that the graduate, 

 when he becomes a pastor, may be fitted to teach his parish- 

 ioners the elements of agriculture. Now, if that is so, we 

 have one country in the world which is perhaps better edu- 

 cated in agriculture than any other, and the farmers have 

 control of things, and are in many cases graduates of col- 

 leges. As a result of this education, the production of a cow 

 in Holland averages three times the production of a cow in 

 this country. And Ave also find that that country sustains 

 a population four times as dense as it is in Massachusetts. 



