ILLINOIS dairymen's ASSOCIATION. 65 



moreover, earnest and enthusiastic in their desire to lift the next generation 

 of farmers to a higher educational level. Put these into the district schools. 

 There would be an immediate demand for them. Let the farmer boys not 

 only hear of Whittier, Longfellow, Bryant, Emerson, Lowell, Washington 

 Irving, Sir Walter Scott, Tennyson and Shakespeare, but of Joseph Harris, 

 Dr. J. B. Laws, Prof. Att water, Chas. L. Flint, Geo. E. Waring, Joseph 

 Johnston, Manly Miles, Henry S. Randall and the faithful workers in the 

 agricultural department of our own school at Champaign. Let them be led 

 to see the points of contact between the mathematical knowledge they are 

 acquiring and lY^ farm. Make them feel their need, as farmers, of a larger 

 vocabulary by requiring them to attempt to read Johnson's '* How Crops 

 Grow," and " How Crops Feed." Make them feel their need as farmers of 

 some chemical knowledge in order that they may be able to understand better 

 the science of feeding and the management of manures. Let them discover 

 their own inability to read the best portions of the Prairie Farmer, or the 

 Western Eural. Let them not only be taught the pedigree of the English 

 kings, but of " Goldsmith's Maid." This latter not so much for the valuable 

 lesson on in-breeding that may be found therein, as for the purpose of inter* 

 esting them in the study of stock-breeding as a science. Let them study 

 the skeleton of a horse ; learn the names of the bones and of the joints and 

 the location and nature of a spavin, a ringbone, and a splint; induce them 

 to examine horses, both those that have these defects and those that are 

 without them. Then will they become willing learners of English grammar 

 and rhetoric. For they will desire to acquire that skill in the use of English 

 that will enable them to describe their pet horse in language as free from 

 solecisms and barbarisms as is the horse from curbs and splints and thorough- 

 pins. 



All the boys are taught declamation on the ground I suppose that any 

 boy is likely to be elected to Congress. Why not teach all the boys the chem- 

 istry of the soil on the ground that every boy will sometime in his life have 

 a garden ? It is quite safe to say that the average boy will find as frequent 

 opportunity to use his knowledge of the elements of which the soil is com- 

 posed as he will his oratorical acquirements. 



Let an atmosphere of labor pervade the school room. Make the young 

 farmer pupils realize that the school life is the best kind of preparation for 

 the farm life. Let them be made to see the points of contact between the 

 two and they will be lead to think and read concerninsr those things they are 

 to do in after life. Then will the toiling masses realize that the higher de- 

 partments of the public schools are for them. Then will the farmer pupils 

 climb the public school stairway to its very top. Then will our farm libra- 

 ries grow. Agricultural periodicals will be in better demand and will be 

 better read. The work of the agricultural department of this great Univer- 

 sity will be better understood and therefore better appreciated. 



In the catalogue of this institution I find these words : "Agriculture in- 

 volves a larger number of sciences than any other human employment and 

 becomes a fit sequence to any collegiate training." The accuracy of the 

 statement cannot for a moment be questioned. But there are thousands of 

 men in this great State who can never become scientific agriculturists but 



