54 



one, is the spread of agricultural education, so that the rural 

 schools shall no longer, as stated by Dr. Maxwell, Superinten- 

 dent of Schools of New York City, in a speech already quoted 

 in this report, teach only matter which " seemed most necessary 

 for the success of the pupils when they should move to the city," 

 thus tending to bring up boys and girls in the country to be 

 ignorant of and to despise country things. 



There are other things, it is true, against which agriculture 

 in this country, as in others, must contend : such as the scarcity 

 and cost of labour, the small hope that agriculture holds out 

 to those that embrace it of a brilliant or highly successful 

 career or of the amassing of a large fortune, and the want of 

 those social amusements and distractions which fall to the lot 

 of the townsman. 



But there is certainly a general conviction growing that 

 much may be done to stem the cityward tide by a system of 

 agricultural education, not only technical but also social and 

 ethical, which both interests its scholars in the science of agri- 

 cultural industry, and at the same time teaches them that by 

 abandoning the country for the town they are frequently giving 

 up the better part in life at the instigation of unattainable 

 ambitions, and thereby sacrificing the substance for the shadow. 



That President Roosevelt has this problem at heart as much 

 as any man in the United States, no one who has read his recent 

 utterances can doubt. 



On 31st May last, he spoke at the semi-centennial celebration 

 of the founding of the Michigan Agricultural College, and dwelt 

 at considerable length on the fact that the American school 

 system has been " well-nigh wholly lacking hitherto on the side 

 of industrial training, of the training which fits a man for the 

 shop and the farm/' He pointed out that in this respect educa- 

 tional energies had been devoted rather to produce high-grade 

 men at the top than skilled workmen in the ranks of the in- 

 dubtrial professions. The result of this was, he said, that " in 

 many of our trades almost all the recruits among the workmen 

 are foreigners." 



Referring to the social and ethical phase of the question of 

 education, the President strongly advocated the necessity for 

 social coherence and a sense of community interest, the gradual 

 disappearance of which in the Eastern States he deplored. 



