16 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



four years in the lives of thousands of boys and girls flung forward 

 toward maturity in a mass disordered and unimproved? Here are 

 forty thousand whom the traditional high schools have either 

 failed to hold or have positively repelled. And no inconsiderable 

 portion of this number consists of farm boys and girls who, in the 

 absence of vocational agricultural education suited to their needs, 

 will drop out of school on reaching their fourteenth birthdays. 



"They are a worthless lot. You can't do anything with them!" 



Such a statement as the above, which was made not long ago 

 by a man in the western part of our State, is impossible of accep- 

 tance. Granted that some on close acquaintance will be found 

 to be incompetent, fit subjects for schools for defectives; granted 

 also that some will prove to be incorrigible, fit only to be handled 

 by some reformatory or restraining institution, there still remain 

 the great mass who are neither defective nor incorrigible. For 

 these something can, something must be done. 



Nor is it possible, with equanimity, to take the ground assumed 

 not long ago by another of our citizens, an educator of some promi- 

 nence, who said he was not so sure, after all, that it is not a good 

 thing for most boys and girls to leave school at fourteen. 



"In the next two or four years," he said, "they will be doing 

 two good things — growing up, and learning to mind. Most boys 

 think obedience is a peculiar requirement made by parents and 

 schoolmasters. The boy discharged from one job, then from 

 another, for a few times, on account of carelessness or disobedience, 

 will at last learn that obedience, discipline, ability for taking 

 orders and carrying them out promptly and exactly, is one of the 

 fundamental necessities of society. Life itself in the workaday 

 world is one of the best teachers of this important fact. Given a 

 boy grown up and taught to mind and you can do something 

 with him." 



Advocates of vocational education desire physical fitness and 

 moral tractability, but believe this can best be secured by a well- 

 ordered course of training under proper vocational school condi- 

 tions. 



