4886 THE AURAL NEW-YORKER. S47 
HOW SHALL WE EDUCATE OUR 
CHILDREN AGRICULTURALLY? 
J. M. STAHL. 
Some new ideas; home instruction the. prime 
necessity; to hey in in the cradle; not to he 
taught in schools or colleges; nor from, text 
hooks; the mother as a teacher; kindergar¬ 
ten with farm things as object essons; 
home, influences; fruits and floicers; the 
child must own something; a change need¬ 
ed in school hooks; papers as teachers; pic¬ 
tures; agricultural story hooks. 
That our children “may appreciate the 
benefits of farm life and turn them to the best 
advantage,” they must be educated in a love 
for the farm, and in the science of farming. 
Th y must be taught more, but these two 
things lie at the foundation: for the benefits 
of farm life lie in the ability to till the farm 
successfully (not to make money solely, as we 
shall presently see) and an appreciation of 
those benefits lie in the love of the farm. 
This canuot be taught, as a separate branch 
of instruction in our country common schools. 
The art of farming cannot be tau>ht there; 
there is no time for i f s science. School days 
are already too short for the farmer boy and 
girl to accomplish the legitimate work of the 
public schools. Nor can a love of farm life be 
instilled there. It cannot be taught in our 
agricultural colleges. The masses cannot at¬ 
tend them. Tho’ every young man and wom¬ 
an could, the work must be begun long before 
they are young men and women. Colleges 
are not for children; this teaching must be. 
Neither could it be taught iu primary agri¬ 
cultural schools, though we had them and 
there was room for them. The idea of school 
must be eliminated from this course of instruc¬ 
tion. The teaching must be unconscious to 
the child. 
Neither can the lessou be learnt from strictly 
agricultural text books. We have these al¬ 
ready. They do not teach this lesson. True, 
they are not for children: but make them so. 
aud you will destroy the second part of this 
education. Children do not like that which 
must be learned, though you make a story 
book of it. You must conceal the study of 
theories and facts if you would at the same 
time awaken an appreciation of them, a love 
for the farm, its work and its benefits. I have 
condemned text books and schools—study. In 
justification I say that nearly all my life has 
been spent upon a farm; I love children, and 
I have kept school. I know the farm, the chil¬ 
dren, the school, and I know I am right in my 
condemnation. 
This must be taught first and above all else 
in the home. There will be several teachers 
in the home, but the most important is the 
mother. Who can teach as the mother? Ah, 
heaven! G Ive us good mothers, they make us 
what we are! I can not tell of all the ways a 
mother can educate her children agricultural¬ 
ly, for it would be a recital as boundless as a 
mother’s love. But let her sing agricultural 
baby songs like 
"Little Bo-roop has lost her sheep,” etc., 
above the cradle. Wheu the very little child 
comes to mother to tell it a story, very likely 
to go to sleep with, let her tell fairy tales or 
fables of the farm—what the birds, aud bees, 
and flowers, and grass, and leaves, and wheat 
say and do, how they sleep, and grow, and 
work; what the sunshine, nnd rain, and wind 
say to them—a thousand fanciful stories can 
be made of these. And what a wealth of 
material for little childrens’ stories do the 
ducks, chicks, piggies, lambs, colts, calves, 
etc., afford! The child will learn to love the 
farm and nil about, it almost u-s it learns to 
love its mother, Its mind will dwell upon the 
farm, its thoughts be about it, and it will grow 
alert and ready for instruction, Wheu this 
time comes, let the mother take a flower, a 
tuft of grass, a bird’s nest, something of this 
sort, nnd tell tho children all about it. Let. 
her tell how the root eats and drinks; how the 
flower supports bees and moths, and finally 
perfects the seed; how the birds build their 
nests, rear their young and migrate. Let the 
subject be pleasant aud the lesson will be 
pleasant, for the instruction will be pleasant, 
never fear. No one can talk and teach like 
“mother,” you know; at least to the little 
child. And the child will continuo to grow 
in the love and knowledge of these things—the 
birds, flowers, pigs, lambs, colts, calves, grass 
and grain. The children will tell each other 
what the birds say, inventing all sorts of fanci¬ 
ful tales; how the grass nnd the flowers grow. 
They will come and tell “mother” the very 
things she has told them, only embellished 
with all sorts of fancies, And they will won¬ 
der and want to know more. They will want 
to know all about these things. Oh, they will 
ask a thousand questions. And how can they 
help loving these things when they are so in¬ 
teresting? How can they help loving Nature’s 
great picture-book and toy-house, more won¬ 
derful ami pleasing than any work of man ? 
How can they help loving the farm when it 
contains all these interesting and beautiful 
things? Why, the farm, I care, not how small 
it may be, contains materials for interesting, 
loving investigations for a life-time. Awaken 
the mind of the child to an investigation and 
understanding of these things, and you, while 
teaching the advantages of farm life, will also 
awaken an appreciation of them so strong that 
it will ripen into a love of the farm that will 
keep the children always there. 
“But,” you say, “that is all fanciful, no 
mother will do that.” You do not know what 
a woman’s ingenuity and a mother’s love are. 
Tho mother amuses and instructs her child 
with and about other objects. Will she not 
take up for this purpose the things pertaining 
to the farm when she secs she can do so much 
for her child ? 
Co-existent with the influence of the mother 
is that influence of the home so well under¬ 
stood but impossible to analyze. Little things 
are responsible for it—sunshiny rooms, clean, 
white beds, flowers, pictures, rugs, birds, for 
examples, There must be an air uf pleasant¬ 
ness and intelligence about the home. The 
child must learn to love it because it is pleas¬ 
ant, because it is a lovely epitome of all the 
advantages and benefits of farm life. How 
cau the child learn and love these benefits if 
its home is devoid of them? 
I can not go into details but let me mention 
two things -fruitsand flowers. These belong 
distinctively to the farm. Children love them. 
I have yet to see a child that does not love 
fruit. The little stomach is grateful for it. 
Fruit to eat in abundance is one of the great¬ 
est advantages of farm life. It means pleas¬ 
urable health. Fruit to cultivate is as great 
a benefit of farm life. It has a marked moral 
effect often noticed. Bring these benefits to 
the practical notice and consequent enjoyment 
of the child, aud of course it will appreciate 
them. 
Flowers are as important as fruit. One 
pleases the palate, the other the eye. Both 
alike have a refining tendency'. Flowers make 
the home, the farm beautiful. Children love 
flowers. Did you ever see a baby that would 
not crawl toward a blossom? Take advan¬ 
tage of this love for flowers. Make the farm 
home,—the house, the yard, the garden, full 
of flowers. Rest assured that the child will 
see and appreciate this advantage of farm 
life. 
Here let me anticipate somewhat. Give the 
child a plat of ground all its own.—for flow¬ 
ers flrst, because it can cultivate them first. 
Take a seed—a bean and a grain of corn are 
best—and show it how it is formed—of plum¬ 
ule, radicle, cotyledons aud food—and tell the 
child how it grows. The child will listen with 
wide eyes and mouth. It will ask questions. 
It will never plant one of its flower seeds 
afterwards without thinking of what has been 
told it. Then when the plant appears explain 
the use of the different parts—which eat and 
which breathe. It will soon learn the easier 
phenomena of the growth of its flower bed. 
Make this plat all its own. It will tend and 
love it, for it is its own, and it will blossom by 
and by. Later give it a plat iu the vegetable 
garden, then some berries or fruit trees, and 
then a field of grain and some farm stock and 
chickens, all for its own. Tell it all about 
these. It will listen and be interested, for 
these things are its. 
But as it grows older there, must be more 
aids. It goes to school. Its renders should be 
about the farm. Starting with the lowest the 
whole story of plant life could be taught with¬ 
out the child being conscious of it, nnd the 
book would be interesting. The child takes 
up arithmetic. Instead of the problems being 
about buying and selling bonds, exchange, 
custom-house duties, etc., as they are, let them 
be about something that will concern the 
farm. Such problems would answer every 
purpose better. His readers will have told 
him of the soil he is to cultivate, of the plants 
he is to grow, and the stock he is to feed, or the 
tools he is to use. Let tho problems be such 
as he must solve to be a successful farmer. 
The readers will prepare him for this work. I 
cannot particularize: but suppose the problem 
bo, How mauy pounds of pork will so many 
tiouuds of corn make? If corn contains so 
much of this element and that, milk, peas and 
cotton seed meal ditto, what proportions of 
each should be used for a ration for a pig, the 
elements to be so and so ? Questions like these 
would lie of incalculable benefit. And when 
the child comes to study geography, it should 
not learn tho names and locations of all the 
towns nnd creeks on the globe, but rather the 
productions of each place. And it should not 
learn this by memorizing, but by reasoning, 
from a knowledge of the heat, rainfall, winds 
latitude, seasons, and situation of the locality. 
And so with the other studies of the school. 
The pupil can learn the science of farming 
while learning to read and to spell, while 
learning arithmetic, grammar, geography, 
composition, etc. Let me say right here that 
composition may be made a powerful auxil¬ 
iary. The subjects should he about the science, 
the art and the charms of farm life. 
But the education of the child is not yet 
done. Papers have become the almighty 
school-masters. They go into every home to 
iustruct and amuse. They will awaken a love 
for the farm life because they will make it 
pleasant and interesting. Children read and 
like papers. Put facte into a book and the child 
will despise them; put them into a paper and 
the child is delighted. Why? Because the 
book is associated with school, study, work; 
the paper with home, enjoyment, play. We 
must have agricultural papers for children. 
Make a story of the facts to be taught. Put 
pictures into it. Children like pictures. Pic¬ 
tures teach. One picture in a dictionary will 
teach more than a column of words. Hide 
the facts in humor, even. We all like fun- 
children best of all. The mind will absorb the 
fact, the fancy be pleased with the humor, It 
will be a mental sugar-coated pill. Make the 
flrst lessons easy: grade up to something high¬ 
er. We must have children’s, youths’, young 
men’s and women’s papers—all agricultural. 
These will teach the facts of agriculture, and 
not create a dislike for farm life. Boys buy 
revolvers and run away from home from read¬ 
ing blood-and-thunder stories. Girls meet 
their ruin through the agency of trashy nov¬ 
els. These facte show the influence interesting 
stories have upon the youthful mind. Agri¬ 
culture may be made an interesting story. 
Have not geology, zoology and chemistry? 
And when you make an interesting story of 
them, you will not only teach the child the 
benefits of farm life, but will awaken an ap¬ 
preciation of them. 
Just a little in the rear of the story papers, 
after the child is interested, should come ag¬ 
ricultural story books. And when the child 
is child no longer, it will ever read the papers 
and books we now have. It will be noticed 
that l have omitted to state how the moral 
benefits of farm life may be taught, and an 
appreciation of them be instilled This work 
cannot be done by direct means. Don’t 
preach. Get the child interested in the farm 
and loving it in the ways I have pointed out, 
and all else will come. Good books and a 
good home on the interesting, loved farm wilj 
never be forsaken for the sin and excitement 
of the city. 
I have been compelled to omit many things; 
and what I have given are merely hints. 
Read and think, and you can supply what 
space forbade roe to write. 
Adams Co., HI. 
CATALOGUES, ETC., RECEIVED. 
Dehorning Cattle.— For some years past, 
Mr. H. H. Haaff. of Henry Co., Ill., has prac¬ 
ticed “dehorning”—that is. the sawing off of 
the horn close up to the skull. This practice 
has been quite common for years in parts of 
Ireland and some other countries, but has al¬ 
ways been looked upon with horror by the 
great majority of the people. Mr. Haaff has 
advocated his system publicly, and attracted 
considerable attention. Last Wiutor, in order 
to tost the matter thoroughly, he was arrested 
for cruelty to animals. After a trial of fr ur 
days he was discharged, as it became apparent 
that no case could be made against him. The 
evidence was peculiar. That for the prosecu¬ 
tion was based on theory almost entirely. The 
operation was said to be cruel, because the 
witnesses could not see how it could be other¬ 
wise. On the other hand, witnesses who had 
seen the operation performed, were positive 
that there was no great pain, that the animals 
were at once ready to eat and drink, and that 
iu milch cows the milk secretion was not iu 
the least diminished. With such testimony, 
no other verdict could be possible. This little 
book has been published bv Mr. Haaff in order 
to satisfy tho questioners who have been at¬ 
tracted by the published account of the trial. 
It Is asserted that dehorning tends to “gentte” 
cattle beyond all question. It is claimed that 
a “man-killer” bull was so cowed by the loss 
of his horns that a boy could lead him. It is 
claimed that the destruction of all the horns 
iu this country would save 800 human beings 
aud 100,000 cattle every year, that being the 
estimated number of lives sacrificed. Nearly 
all loss of calves by abortion, one-fourth of the 
winter feed, oue half of the shed-room, all the 
manure now wasted about sheds and stables and 
all loss iu shipping cattle would be saved by 
dehorning, if we may believe Mr. Haaff. Of 
course, these statements refer more particu¬ 
larly to Western stock raising, where larger 
herds are kept and where, consequently, less 
care can be given to individual animals. 
Speaking of polled cattle. Mr. H. believes that 
by a careful polling of calves, we may, in a 
very short time, have any breed of cattle 
polled. He thinks any organ not provided 
with full and direct arterial circulation is 
liable at any time to be not produced. He 
thinks that polled Holsteins or Short-horns 
could be obtained in six crosses, but that it 
would take 16 crosses to produce polled Here¬ 
ford*. He appears to think that dehorning 
should be done with the same spirit that 
causes us to trim trees, pare our nails, cut 
corns, castrate animals or ring pigs’ noses. 
He thinks that “hollow-horn” is caused by the 
freezing or chilling of the horn. Dr. Law is 
quoted as saying; “I wish dehorning might 
become as common as castration is now.” The 
great argument of the book is that sawing off 
the horn close to the head does not cause a 
fraction of the pain that comes when the horn 
is knocked off. The suture that divides the 
skull of the ox runs up and down the face. A 
heavy blow on the horn tends to open this 
suture and congests the brain. The pain is 
not so much at the place where the blow is 
struck as it is at the brain itself. Persons 
who have watched the agony of an animal 
that has received a blow upon the horn, have 
been quick to say that dehorning must be hor¬ 
ribly painful, when really this would not 
necessarily follow. Interesting arguments to 
show that the horn is not particularly sensi¬ 
tive to pain, are introduced at such length 
that they cannot be repeated here. It is stated 
that the circulation of blood in the horn is ex¬ 
tremely small, and that changes are very slow. 
The nerves that are sensitive to pain are dis¬ 
tributed with increased supply to parts that 
undergo rapid waste and repair, and are dim¬ 
inished in a marked degree where the processes 
take place more slowly. The outside shell of 
the horn is as absolutely incapable of pain as 
the hair, or the free bonier of the nails. The 
central portion of the horn, in young life, con¬ 
sists entirely of cartilage, separate and inde¬ 
pendent of the frontal bone. As age increases, 
it is converted into true bone by the deposition 
in it of mineral matters. Cartilage and bone 
are not sensitive tissues, and cutting can be 
done in them with comparatively little pain. 
The only sensitive portion of the horn occurs 
at its base where the true skin unites with the 
periostal covering of the bone. The sensitive 
portion exposed in sawing off a horn three 
inches in diameter will not exceed 1K square 
inch, so that the operation could hardly be 
so painful as where a red-hot iron is used upon 
a calf’s head. Mr. Haaff states that as he per¬ 
forms the operation there is little bleeding, and 
comparatively little pain. He thinks old ani¬ 
mals experience less pain than younger ones, 
as in growing animals the membrane at the 
base of the horn must be tender and more 
sensitive, Mr. Haaff disclaims any great in¬ 
terest in the present polled breeds of cattle. 
"We can never afford to do away with Short¬ 
horns, Herefords, or Holsteins, hut these same 
breeds, minus the horns, would be more valu¬ 
able than they now are. Breeders are alreadv 
at work upon the Holstein breed, as there is a 
demand for a polled dairy animal. Mr. Haaff, 
in giving directions for performing the opera¬ 
tion, is not so clear as he is in proving that the 
pain is not very great. We do not believe 
we could follow his directions and not torture 
the animal. We should not care to try the 
operation until we had seen it performed and 
had studied the structure of the horn more 
carefully. It is easy for a surgeon to cut off a 
limb, but an amatenr would make a horrible 
job of it. and we are of the opinion that farm¬ 
ers who follow Mr. Haaff’s directions, without 
practice or study of the animal’s head, will 
cause untold suffering. That dehorning can 
be done, by a practical hand, with compara¬ 
tively little pain seems evident: that an ama¬ 
teur can take a saw and cut off horns with 
any pleasure or profit to himself or the cattle, 
we do not believe. The book is interesting, 
and will give any stock owner'much to think 
about. 
Fanciers’ Hand-Book.— Pamphlet from 
the Associated Fanciers, “37 S. 8th St., Phila¬ 
delphia, Pa.—This book is given up to a 
description of the different breeds of dogs, with 
hints on handling and managing them. All 
breeds of dogs are represented and well illus¬ 
trated. A short chapter on the disease of dogs 
contains many excellent hints for properly 
describing the symptoms of common diseases. 
This association possesses unsurpassed facilities 
for supplying good dogs at all times. Instead 
of being roared in close kennels, as many show 
dogs are reared, the breeding dogs are sent into 
the country where farmers take a cont ract for 
raising the puppies. In this way the dogs are 
stronger, healthier and much better than they 
otherwise would be. There are manv interest¬ 
ing points in this pamphlet w hich should bestud- 
ied by those who wish to procure a good dog. 
Having had business relations with the compa¬ 
ny, we can commend them'to^our readers as 
honorable business men. 
