64 THE farmer's education. 



most part, get highly interested in the end, and finally become 

 good teachers if it is in them, but nine out of ten of them 

 will attack it with regret. 



The teachers are by no means to blame for this. They 

 are exactly like the rest of us, and substantially reflect public 

 sentiment. Our ideal of education is one of our inheritances 

 from England, and comes down from a tinje when only rich 

 men's sons were educated, for whom general literary culture 

 was the training desired, and very likely most desirable. 

 When Massachusetts, and others after her, established the 

 common-school system, the ideal of education was the English 

 ideal, which was always before that portion of the public 

 which expected or hoped to go beyond the three R's, and 

 directed the aspirations of teachers and parents. After the 

 Revolution, and especially during our periods of most rapid 

 expansion, all children were regarded as the sons of sovereigns, 

 and the ideal of their education was that of other princes. 

 When the pressure of population began to be felt, there arose 

 a demand in tlie most populous centers that some portion of 

 the school time be spent in direct training for special avoca- 

 tions, and this again raised the techiiical dispute among 

 teachers as to whether the pu[)il is not best prei)ared for all 

 avocations by general training without special reference to any. 

 This educational question will be settled by experiment 

 under demand created by the increasing difficulty of obtaining 

 subsistence and maintaining the standard of comfort. It is 

 significant that the demand for special instruction is now 

 beginning to be heard from the rural districts. In most cases, 

 however, it does not seem to come from the masses of the 

 people, but from a few who feel that some technical instruc- 

 tion is needed. The fact is that for the most part farmers' 

 children do not wish to be farmers, and their parents sympa- 

 thize with them, which results in a feeling of apathy which it 

 is difficult to overcome. 



Another difficulty lies in the fact that the teachers are not 

 farmers, and while many are tiie sons or daughters of farmers, 

 their feeling is not for the farm. The outcome of all these 

 influences, new ideas struggling to get into the schools, and 



