THE LEVER ACT ' 



training through the country schools. If rural life is to be readjusted 

 and agriculture dignified as a profession as it should be and is, the 

 country boy and girl must be made to know in the most positive way 

 that successful agriculture requires as much brain as does any other 

 occupation in life. The whole trend of our system of education is 

 calculated to minimize agriculture as a profession. Its logical tend- 

 deney is to create a feeling of dissatisfaction with farm life and 

 an ambition to get away from it. Such a situation is unfortunate ; it 

 is most dangerous. The farm boy and girl can be taught that agri- 

 culture is the oldest and most dignified of the professions, and with 

 equal attention and ability can be made as successful in dollars and 

 cents, to say nothing of real happiness, as any of the other pro- 

 fessions. Your committee believes that one of the main features of 

 this bill is that it is so flexible as to provide for the inauguration of a 

 system of itinerant teaching for hoys and girls." 



Another congressman who was known as a friend and 

 promoter of the Demonstration Work in his state was Repre- 

 sentative Hughes, of Georgia. Like Congressman Lever, the 

 author of the bill, he had made a close study of the work 

 being done by the county agents and had given them much 

 encouragement. Later he was the author of the Hughes Bill 

 for Vocational Education. One of the objects of his bill is 

 to give better training to demonstration agents. He sketched 

 the scope of the Lever Bill in the course of the debate in the 

 following language : 



"In my opinion Dr. Knapp, late of the United States Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, who extended this Demonstration Work in the 

 South, has accomplished more directly for the farmer than all other 

 agencies combined. He has carried pent up, inert, scientific informa- 

 tion through his demonstrations to the man in the field. Wheresoever 

 he has reached this man he has awakened his energies, his thoughts, 

 his purposes, and that man is proceeding to-day with new life and 

 brighter hopes. His land has been made to yield 100% more and his 

 profit has been correspondingly increased. This bill proposes to put 

 the Knapp demonstration plan into active operation in every county, 



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