1904 
Hope Farm Notes 
AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 
I am glad that the Agricultural College at 
Cornell is to have a suitable home. I went 
through au agricultural college over 20 years 
ago without financial help or home hacking. 
1 think I know something about the need of 
schooling for the farmer. In looking over 
some old papers I find the following letter, 
which I chop up and use as best I can for 
texts. I ought to have printed it before, but 
the question of farm education is only just 
beginning, and farmers themselves are most 
interested in it. This letter is from a man 
who has thought hard and well represents a 
large class of solid, clear-headed men of the 
soil. lie refers to the statement from Prof. 
Bailey printed on page 577 of last year's 
R. N.-Y.: 
/ was Quite interested in Prof. Bailey’s 
payer concerning the future of Cornell Uni¬ 
versity. In common with many educational 
people, he makes a very glowing picture of 
the future for man by the helps and advan¬ 
tages which his own and other colleges will 
offer him. He is strong on glittering gener¬ 
alities; is a most entertaining and even in¬ 
spiring writer, but there is in all his writ¬ 
ings a great deal of shop talk, so to speak. 
There is quite a difference between Cor¬ 
nell University and the Agricultural College. 
True, one is a part of the other, but the 
college will develop a character of its own, 
just as individuals of a large family may 
have the family spirit and still build up 
strong and new traits of character from out¬ 
side influences. I should not feel so hope¬ 
ful for the college if I did not know that 
many practical farmers are interested in it, 
and will have a hand in its management. 
As for Prof. Bailey, our friend simply does 
not know the man. Every fact and princi¬ 
ple must first he a “glittering generality.” 
They must be “generalities" until we learn 
how to use a rifle in place of a shotgun. 
They must glitter in order to attract atten¬ 
tion, but work and honest sense will grind 
them down to a cutting edge. We nmst re- 
rnemoer that Prof. Bailey and others are 
doing pioneer work—learning how to teach 
agriculture with one hand while teaching it 
with the other. I often feel that in my own 
education 1 was partly the victim of an ex¬ 
periment, since no one seemed to know at 
that time what a farmer ought to study in 
order to develop the man and the soil to¬ 
gether. The best I got out of my course was 
the example and high character of the men 
who taught us. 
Education, according to Prof. Bailey and 
others in the profession, is going forward by 
leaps and bounds. Some of us icliose mem¬ 
ories take us back 25 years or more know 
that this talk is an old chestnut, and know, 
too, that in all essential honesty and manli¬ 
ness the present generation is in no sense 
superior to the last. Material prosperity 
and moral goodness do not walk hand in 
hand in their wanderings about the icorld. 
The figures certainly show that so-called 
education is gaining and growing. I think 
it leaps so fast that those who gallop with 
it know little of the ground they pass over. 
I know that it seems to many of us older peo¬ 
ple that the present generation is inferior. 
Before deciding that tills is so I want to 
make sure that the change is not in me 
rather than in the younger folks. A man 
liast middle life may he troubled or disap¬ 
pointed, and grow into a condition which 
unfits him from making a fair estimate of 
the value of another’s view of life. We 
hear people say that they could have done 
much better if their hindsight were as good 
as their foresight. My experience is that 
after sorrow fits a man’s eyes to the hind¬ 
sight he never can see through foresight 
as lie did before ! The little farm where 1 
lived as a hoy seemed like a wide world to 
me. 1 go hack to it now and shudder at tlie 
thought of its narrow limitations. Is it not 
so with many of us in trying to compare 
our young selves with our children and their 
companions? It is certainly no compliment 
to us to say that our little ones are made 
of poorer stuff than we are. 
At the same time I do think that public 
sentiment and public morals are on a lower 
plane than they used to be. National pros¬ 
perity has driven over public morals to a 
large extent. Evil butside influences are 
fighting home power. A man of high char¬ 
acter may have a son who gets into bad 
company and becomes a drunkard. No one 
lias (he right to taunt that man with the 
boy's failure while the public permit a rum- 
shop. to stand where it can catch the boy ! 
i certainly believe that the modern system 
of education in our public schools has done 
much to take boys and girls away from tlie 
farm, and spoil good farmers to make poor 
clerks and office hands. That is one great 
reason why I want men like Prof. Bailey 
to have a full chance to give us a form of 
education that will really help the farmer 
and the farm, because a lack of faith in the 
soil is responsible for many of our public 
evils. 
Education is, or ought to be, a good deal 
more than a mere cramming or development 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
431 
of man's mentality. To be worth its cost, 
much or little, its first and ohiefest aim 
should be to develop and strengthen char¬ 
acter, and nothing is more certain than Hint 
mere knowledge does not do this. To train 
and develop good rather than smart citi¬ 
zens ought to be the aim of human en¬ 
deavor, and any training that fails to do 
this is not worth its cost. Judged by this 
standard, the education of to-day is in great 
part a failure, and the rhetoric of Prof. 
Bailey will not always blind all the people. 
I agree with that entirely. Every hour of 
my own hard struggle for an "education” 
proves it. Nothing saddens me so much as 
to see grown-up people slaving and scrimp¬ 
ing in order that their children can have 
an easy time. I will go further than our 
fl-iend does, and say that mere knowledge 
without the strong character needed to steer 
it is a poorer outfit for a boy than ig¬ 
norance and an honest reading habit. I 
would not send a boy within cannon shot of 
Prof. Bailey or anybody eise if I felt he 
was to be made simply “smart” and forget 
the home influences and associations which 
make the character and manly pride which 
farmers need. At the same time I do not 
expect any man or any college to fit a boy 
or girl exactly for the battle of life. When 
I buy a machine of lifeless wood and metal, 
made as perfect as human skill can fit such 
things, I must use it for a while before it 
will do my work as I want it done. It is 
honest work and nothing else that (its tlie 
machine and tue man to make perfect use 
of his breeding or training. If I sent a 
boy to college and he came back so educated 
that he was ashamed of the work Mother 
and I do on the farm I should be in favor 
of nailing up the doors of that college and 
turning it into a henhouse! I take no 
stock in the theory that Mother and I 
should do the growing and put on new airs 
to accommodate our son. Some of our col¬ 
leges seem to operate on that theory, but 
none of it for me. I want the college that 
will keep my boy's heart satisfied with his 
home, hut will put true growth in his head 
and hand. I would not pay five cents for 
anything else, and if the boy earned his 
own education lie would soon drop what he 
felt was useless. Prof. Bailey’s rhetoric 
will not blind people—I think he will open 
their eyes. 
A o human character that knows nothing 
of sacrifice or toil ever is or ever can be 
properly developed. . A’o man can grow 
strong by another’s effort, and it is not 
best, even if possible, to make man’s jour¬ 
ney through life so busy that all self motive 
is lost. “The pathway of the past is strewn 
with the wrecks of human character. The 
pathway of the future is full of shallows 
and of rocks. In the shallows many ivill 
be stranded; upon the rocks many will go 
down.” And it is best that they be allowed 
to go down. They are not worth the saving. 
There, are vast numbers of professional peo¬ 
ple who would better serve the world to-day 
in the ranks of the toilers, who, after all, 
are the salt of the earth. 
Our friend may not know it, but more 
boys are working their way through the 
agricultural colleges than through any other 
class of schools. I think I know what I am 
talking about in this, and I could if need 
be give a long list of young men who are 
practicing all sorts of self-denial in order 
to obtain an •education. That is to be the 
glory of our agricultural education. We 
shall be able to call it “the education of 
service.” 1 know how boys feel about some 
of these things. When I was a freshman 
at college I felt, quite indignant at: an old 
farmer who persisted in saying: “You are 
from the State farm?" instead of “agricul¬ 
tural college.” I got all over that, and 
learned to think that the old man had some 
sort of justice in his remark, for the State 
paid for our education, and we were under 
obligations to it. At ‘the same time I be¬ 
lieve in calling our own institutions “agri¬ 
cultural colleges, for that is what they will 
be. 
The Cornell College is going to be just 
what the farmers of tlie State make it. I 
have sometimes heard people growl about 
the local school, while making no effort 
whatever to help the teacher or to get other 
parents interested. Our friend says that no 
man can grow strong by another’s effort. 
True, and in a measure this is so of au agri¬ 
cultural college. If it be left to literary 
men or soft-handed, idlers who do not know 
a grindstone from a hoe, how can we hope 
to have it help the farm? You cannot stand 
off’ and criticize it into usefulness any more 
than you can put a cow into a brickyard 
and make her give milk by swearing at her. 
The State provides for these colleges and 
then expects farmers to make their influ¬ 
ence felt in the management. We can make 
them what we will, for who can measure the 
power of 10,000 farmers working together 
in any State? 
As for saying that the feeble and incom¬ 
petent would better be left to die, I do not 
agree with that. I would try to stir them 
up, at least. Nothing can be worse for so¬ 
ciety than a desperate, hopeless class who 
feel that they are denied even sympathy. 
The toiler who works for himself alone with 
no thought of pity for those who were not 
taught the glory of labor and the love of 
service can hardly be called "salt" of a high 
quality. H. w. c. 
Okkkniiopsk vs. FTotreds. — I think if the 
Hope Farm man knew the advantage of a 
greenhouse ovet the hotbeds he would build 
one before another season. I used hotbeds 
for about 20 years, and a greenhouse for the 
last 10 years. For a house to start garden 
plants in I would prefer a southeastern hill¬ 
side ; then grade a level place for the house 
or build a stone wall three feet high for foun¬ 
dation, making notches in it to receive the 
bed supports. Bank up on the outside of the 
wall to two inches of the top. Have 18 inches 
of woodwork on top of wall with 2x4 rafters 
to support hotbed sash, so they can all be 
taken off when not needed, and used on cold 
frames to reset plants at a greater distance 
apart than they were in the house. I heated 
mine with hot-water pipes. We had plenty of 
timber for wood, so I built a large furnace 
under the end of one of the benches, six feet 
long and wide enough for a coil of 2-inch 
pipe, five runs for the boiler. The top of fur¬ 
nace is about 12 inches below the walk. A 
two-inch pipe, three feet long, is screwed into 
the boiler to receive the runs. The two- 
inch pipe, three feet long, stands plumb 
under the benches; it is connected with 
elbows and nipples to receive the two runs. 
The piping is all downhill under the benches; 
no overhead piping. It has done very well, 
as I don't start up before the last of Feb¬ 
ruary. To ydn In the Winter would need 
overhead piping. H. A. MC quiston. 
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