SELECTED SAYINGS 



so that greatness stall be common among the common people of our 

 country. How are you going to do it The old system of education 

 was to educate the top." 



"If the home lacks culture and the boy fails to get the right 

 training there is a weak spot in his character that no future teach- 

 ing can help very much." 



^'I have seen namby-pamby boys, tied to their mothers' apron 

 strings and taught Latin and Greek, sent out into the world. Poor 

 little puny things ! Why, I would rather take a street boy that can 

 knock his way through the crowd; I would rather risk him in the 

 battle of life than that namby-namby boy. We don't let our boys 

 and girls learn how to manage." 



"The costliest animal in the world is a man or woman. They 

 cost in treasure, cost in care, cost in human anxiety. Yet, we 

 shorten human life by neglect. The average age or span of life and 

 a possible one are wide apart. My ideal of education is that of 

 practical sense, leadership. Get that sense into a boy and he will 

 take up farming, and if he knows a few fundamental principles he 

 will apply the rest. Teach him the importance of knowing a few 

 things well, of system and thrift. Education really means a leading 

 out, we make it a stuffing in. Try to teach the child to lay by his 

 knowledge on a certain shelf in the brain ready for use. Not one 

 person in a thousand has put his thoughts or facts in a definite 

 brain niche, so that when he wants that knowledge he can reach out 

 and take that knowledge and use it. Farmers must be orderly. 

 Farms are simply an outward indication of what kind of brains the 

 farmer has. There is no such thing as poor land. It is the poor 

 brain of a thoughtless man on top of the supposedly poor soil. No 

 matter how poor the land appears, it can be made profitable if the 

 farmer knows how and has the will power to carry it out. Try the 

 system of education that makes men as well as farmers." 



"Get down to where people can understand, touch the bottom 

 and lift." 



"Our project would have been sufficiently ambitious if we had 

 said; *We will increase the wealth and give the people greater earn- 

 ing power.' But other things that we teach incidentally are that we 

 must improve the moral tone; the moral conditions and the whole 

 prosperity of the people, to try to turn all avenues of the wealth 



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