No. 4.] AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 117 



my own community there is a most decided mind upon the 

 part of the people that some phase of agriculture should be 

 taught in the schools. I attended an open meeting in one 

 of our granges two weeks ago, and the superintendent of 

 schools in the town of Attleborough was the gentleman who 

 gave the address. His subject was the subject we are talk- 

 ing about to-day. He showed that he was very much inter- 

 ested in the introduction of agriculture in the schools, and 

 had tried to carry it out this last year. After his address 

 several statements were made by practical farmers in the 

 audience. He then arose and made this statement, that the 

 great obstacle in the wa}^ of introducing agriculture into our 

 schools was the fact that the teachers were not prepared to 

 teach it, from the superintendent down. I have talked with 

 a good many teachers in regard to this mxitter, and they all 

 told me they would like to teach it, and would be interested 

 in it, but they were not prepared to teach it. 



There seems to me to be one special reason why it should 

 be taught. There is a chani>:ed condition in our schools from 

 fifty years ago. I have a school in mind, — it is a school 

 that my daughter is teaching. She has twenty-nine pupils, 

 twenty-five of whom are foreigners, mostly Portuguese. 

 There is a Portuguese settlement near by. Those Portu- 

 guese children will attend the school, the grammar grades, 

 perhaps, just a few years ; nine-tenths of them will then be 

 compelled to earn a livelihood. It seems to me that the 

 successful man is a better citizen than an unsuccessful one ; 

 and it seems clear to me that, if those Portuguese children 

 could be taught the simple elements of agriculture, so that 

 th(»y would know more than th(> average farmer knows to-day 

 in regard to the conditions of the soil, in regard to plant food 

 and a hundred other simple things, they would be very nuich 

 better citizens than if they grow up in ignorance. They can 

 study in these schools the rivers and mountains of Alaska, 

 and will forget them in twenty-four hours ; but going to 

 school from the little farm where their parents are tilling the 

 soil, they will be interested, and doubl}^ interested, in the 

 subjects of agriculture, if they are taught in the school. 



Dr. II. H. Goo DELL (president Massachusetts Agricul- 



