64 rLLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



but where are the teachers with which to fill our district schools, who can 

 inspire the boys who choose to sweat in the hay field with an earnestness of 

 purpose that will make of them intelligent tillers of the soil ? They are not. 

 Neither are we, through our public school system, doing any thing to produce 

 them. Our normal schools are in no way aiding us in this work. 



Our district schools are supplied with teachers chiefly from the graduates 

 of our city high schools. They are intelligent young men and women who 

 can write a letter of which neither they nor their instructors need be ashamed. 

 They have much more than the average amount of that refinement and cul- 

 ture so desirable for all. They are ladies and gentlemen. In addition to 

 their many other attainments many of them have had training in the theory 

 and practice of teaching. They know something of the science of instruc- 

 tion. They are in many instances well prepared to teach our children to 

 read, to write, to spell and to '' speak pieces ; " but they have no adequate 

 appreciation of the special educational necessities of him who is to earn his 

 bread by tilling the soil. Consequently they utterly fail to show the pupil 

 the many points of contact between his school work and his life work. They 

 fail to create in the mind of the farmer pupil a desire to extend his knowl- 

 edge far beyond that which he shall obtain in the district school, unless, 

 perchance, they induce him to seek the honors and emoluments of profes- 

 sional life. They fail to stimulate the pupil to acquire a large amount of 

 that knowledge which he can "assimilate and organize into a basis of action" 

 as a farmer. Therefore the farmer pupils leave school as soon as they are 

 barely able to read and write and " cipher to the rule of three ; " unable in- 

 deed to read scientific agricultural truth. So meagre has been their intel- 

 lectual training that they will be unable through life to make the data of 

 their own experience the basis of such reasoning as will lead them to correct 

 conclusions. They will go through the world planting their potatoes and 

 killing their pork by the nioon ; forecasting the weather on a gopher-robin- 

 muskrat basis ; splitting caudal appendages to cure the horn-ail, and burn- 

 ing the roofs of horses' mouths to give them an appetite for corn. 



The more intelligent farmers of this agricultural state, many of whom 

 are members of this Association, should see to it that there are normal schools 

 established whose mission should be to educate teachers for the district 

 schools. A body of school principals assembled in convention not many 

 weeks ago advocated with great unanimity the establishment of several new 

 state normal schools. They even appointed a committee whose duty it 

 should be to make every possible e:ffort to secure the necessary legislation. 

 Members were urged and instructed to aid in creating a popular sentiment 

 in favor of the movement. This is right. The State of Illinois can better 

 afford to train teachers at her own expense than to employ untrained ones. 

 But shall not some of them be trained with especial reference to the needs of 

 the farmer pupils ? Would that there might be such a school, located under 

 the wing of this university, and that it might annually send out an army of 

 young men, perhaps not themselves in a broad sense agriculturists, not grad- 

 uates of the " College of Agriculture," for these would not accept positions 

 in the district schools, but young men with a good knowledge of the common 

 English branches, familiar with the improved methods of instruction, and 



