“Shall Rudimentary Agriculture and Kindred 
Sciences be Taught in the Common Schools?” 
By Capt. R. E. Rose. 
Mr. President f Ladies and Gentlemen: 
I find myself on this occasion in rather 
a peculiar situation. On coming in last 
night and listening to what Dr. Sledd 
had to say in regard to the relation of the 
University to the Horticultural Society I 
found that he had, to a very large extent, 
anticipated the remarks I expected to 
make this afternoon. It reminds me very 
much of an anecdote which has gone the 
rounds of the Florida political campaign 
for many years. Some years ago, a prom¬ 
inent candidate for Governor and Con¬ 
gressman Davis were canvassing the State 
for different political offices. The rule 
was that the gentleman running for gov¬ 
ernor should make the first speech, 
followed by Davis. At one point, the 
candidate for Governor was Invited by a 
friend to stay all night with him; conse¬ 
quently they were belated in going to the 
meeting the next morning. The local 
committee, not desiring to delay the 
speaking, asked Mr. Davis to address the 
audience. Davis had heard his friend 
speak so often that he got up and gave the 
candidate for Governor’s speech almost 
verbatim. When the other man came in 
and found that his speech had been taken 
thus unceremoniously from him, there 
was nothing else to do but be taken sud¬ 
denly ill and not make any speech at all. 
I could perhaps have overlooked one 
speech of this kind, but at the close of 
the meeting our worthy president had a 
paper largely along the line of common 
education in the public schools. That re¬ 
minded me of the little boy when the min¬ 
ister was taking dinner with his father 
and mother. The little fellow was very 
fond of chicken and chicken was scarce 
with them. His mother said, “Now, 
Tommy, you must only take one piece 
of chicken.” Tommy said, “Well, but, 
mamma, I want more than that.” She 
said, “I know, but there must be one 
piece left for manners.” It so happened 
that the minister took the last piece for 
his second or third helping and Tommy 
cried out, “Oh, mamma, there it goes; 
manners and all!” 
That is the way I feel today. I am 
very glad to see that this session has dealt 
very largely with the interests of educa¬ 
tion. I am very glad to see that our col¬ 
lege men, literary as well as scientific men 
are beginning to realize the fact that a 
slight understanding, at least, of the 
principles of a man’s calling, are abso¬ 
lutely necessary to his success. 
The question, Shall we teach rudimen¬ 
tary science in the common schools?— 
Physics, Chemistry, Biology and kindred 
sciences, relating to agriculture, and do¬ 
mestic science, better known as nature 
studies, is now occupying the attention of 
