CHAPTER XV. 



DAIRY EDUCATION. 



No creamery buttermaker should be satisfied, even if he has 

 ten years' experience in a creamery, until he has taken a creamery 

 .course in a dairy school. The greater his previous experience 

 is, the more he will learn, and he must have at least one year's 

 experience to get any good from the course at all. Indeed, most 

 schools now demand this. 



Granting even that he may be a better maker than the teacher, 

 that he is a smarter mechanic, that he knows more about running 

 engines, separators and machinery generally, the fact remains 

 that he will leave the school with a new view of his work, with 

 a greater pride in his profession, and with a clearer eye to pos- 

 sible self-improvements. As for finishing his education, the very 

 best makers are those who do not finish until their life's churning 

 is done. 



As to the dairy course, any farmer's boy or girl can get great 

 good out of a short course, and no one who can possibly afford 

 it, should neglect to take one. After all, however, it is but a 

 small minority of the farmer's boys and girls that can get to these 

 schools, and though we have, in the Farmers' Institutes and 

 various conventions, the means of bringing dairy education near- 

 er to the farmers, I hope yet to see the modified "Belgium" sys- 

 tem, (urged by me for years in vain), adopted. By this system, 

 any county or township that agrees to provide room, ice and milk, 

 and where at least 10 students enroll, should secure a month's 

 dairy schooling near home with a minimum of science and a 

 maximum of practical suggestions how to do the best work under 

 the present condition. 



I consider the one week's instruction given by the English 

 and Canadian traveling schools too short, and the same money 

 spent on the plan I urge will reach more people and do more good 

 than ten times the amount spent on the large central dairy schools. 



The latter we must have and they should be the Dairy Col- 



in 



