1910. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
IMS 
THE ALBANY CONVENTION. 
Dr. W. II. Jordan was the first speaker 
at the recent Albany convention. When 
I)r. Jordan speaks extempore, he is liable 
to short circuit; but he always writes a 
good paper, and this was one of the 
strongest we have heard him deliver. He 
went hack 50 years to the time that each 
farm community had the means within lt- 
se lf to satisfy its simple wants, independ¬ 
ent of the outside world. Trade was prac¬ 
tically a matter of barter with the shoe¬ 
maker, the blacksmith and the general 
Store. The social life of the community 
centered around these local villages. This 
fair Auburn was disturbed by the building 
of railroads, the opening of the West and 
the development of labor-saving machinery. 
This western activity and production, 
together with the development of manufac¬ 
turing industries, tended to depress eastern 
agriculture, which lost its members to the 
factories and failed in competition with 
the products of the fertile plains of the 
West. In addition to these drawbacks, he 
quoted the failure of farmers to adopt im¬ 
proved methods, the commercial struggle 
for gain, and the deference paid to wealth 
and its power irrespective of the character 
of the possession or the means by which it 
was acquired. lie charged tlie farm moth¬ 
ers with greater pride in the son who 
has met with professional success in the 
city than for the other son, who furnished 
a retreat for her old age on the farm. The 
discriminative influence against agriculture 
as a vocation, intellectually and socially, 
lias a tendency to drive the ambitious sons 
of the farm to other vocations. Dr. Jor¬ 
dan handled the tariff as if it were a 
can of dynamite, but he managed to throw 
out the significant suggestion that some 
people thought the tariff laws discriminate 
against the farmer. This was his analysis 
of the causes that lead to our present 
condition. 
Turning to the present and future needs. 
Dr. Jordan simply struck Hie keynote that 
Professor Bailey, Dean Davenport and 
others followed. They all confined them¬ 
selves to educational functions. The con¬ 
sensus of their papers was that, agricul¬ 
ture should be taught In t ho high schools, 
and that the separate secondary agricul¬ 
tural schools now in existence should not 
he increased. Dr. Jordan was opposed to 
the proposition that, the National Govern¬ 
ment extend aid to State schools, and dis¬ 
couraged the model or demonstration farm 
idea. He defined with great clearness his 
idea of the functions of an experiment sta¬ 
tion; that it is an agency for the acquisi¬ 
tion of knowledge rather than for its 
distribution. It is not for teaching, but 
for research, and he thinks there is a ten¬ 
dency to abuse its functions. 
Professor Bailey was more specific than 
Dr. Jordan in the treatment of the educa¬ 
tional subject, lie proposed a general law 
to define the State's policy of education, 
so that the work may be properly co-ordi¬ 
nated throughout the State. He would 
have the State College of Agriculture at 
Cornell the center of leadership in this 
work, and insisted that it is as important 
to any community that the open country 
be strongly developed as that the cities in¬ 
crease in population and commerce. 
Dr. Sehurman said we are beginning to 
learn that it is possible to educate men 
and women in terms of their environment. 
He favored the teaching of agriculture in 
the high schools, but not in the common 
schools. He also spoke in favor of the 
State schools of agriculture, but wanted 
to keep them as secondary schools, and not 
encroach on the domain of the agricultural 
college, of which, experience had shown, 
he said, that there was room for one only 
In any State. The tone of a powerful in¬ 
tellect was apparent in Dr. Selin rman’s 
address; but somehow one got the feeling 
that to him agriculture was something of 
a necessary nuisance that is just now in¬ 
truding itself into liis environment, and 
that lie was philosophically making the 
best of a bad situation. As he closed, and 
we rose to go out, a former student of 
Cornell was heard to remark: “The Doc¬ 
tor talks all right now, but in our old days 
it was precious little the agricultural boy's 
got out of him.” A farmer who heard him 
also at Utica recently, remarked after the 
Albany speech that Dr. Sehurman had seen 
a light since the Utica meeting. 
Professor Crosby, of the Agricultural De¬ 
partment at Washington, made a strong 
idea for the separate secondary school of 
agriculture. He said : 
“The boy who has made up his mind to 
become a farmer, or a fruit grower, or a 
trucker, wants to know the how its well 
Jis the why of things. I recently heard a 
young agricultural college graduate who 
had been placed in charge of a farm bit¬ 
terly deplore the fact that he, and others 
like him, could go through college and 
receive a bachelor’s degree in agriculture 
without anywhere, either in high school or 
In college or on a farm, learning how to 
plow or dig a ditch, or harness a horse, 
or milk a cow. Such things are not 
taught in public high schools: they are 
not considered to be an essential part: of 
‘education through agriculture’: and, fur¬ 
thermore. the public high schools have 
neither facilities nor the men to teach 
such things in any effective way. Nor, 
do tln> agricultural colleges generally af¬ 
ford training in the practice of agricul¬ 
ture. Their function is to train leaders 
in agricultural education and research, and 
they assume that the details of practice 
have been mastered by the students before 
coming to college.” 
lie insisted that the secondary school 
could serve the boy who wished to become 
a farmer better than the high school could 
do, and more effectively and sympathetic¬ 
ally than the agricultural college can do. 
A paper prepared by Hon. Dennis Mc¬ 
Carthy, Fiscal Supervisor of State Chari¬ 
ties, was read by the secretary, as Mr. 
McCarthy was unable to be present. The 
State has 3,0<t() acres under cultivation in 
connection with its charitable institutions, 
somewhat scattered and operated as in¬ 
dependent: farms. He suggests the em¬ 
ployment of an expert farmer to direct 
the work of all these farms, and, aside 
from the increased production, they might 
be used as model or demonstrating farms. 
Aside from these somewhat formal ad¬ 
dresses, there were some very practical in¬ 
formal talks by B. .1. Case on horticultural 
needs and aids and a sensible tulk by 
Frank N. Godfrey. Master of the State 
Grange, on the needs of the farm from 
the farmers’ viewpoint. Thomas EL Finne¬ 
gan, of the educational Department, gave 
some interesting information on the school 
question, and told what the Department 
has done and is about to do to encourage 
the teaching of agricultural and nature 
subjects in both the common and high 
schools. President Boothe C. Davis, of 
Alfred University, gave an interesting ac¬ 
count of the work going on at his school; 
and Dean Herbert 10. (look did the same 
for his State School of Agriculture at St. 
Lawrence University, Canton. The farm¬ 
ers’ institute work was explained by Ed¬ 
ward Van Alstyne, the veteran institute 
worker. The silver-tongued Geo. YV. Sis¬ 
son, Jr., read a carefully prepared paper 
on the educational aids to improved ani¬ 
mal industry. 
President Brown, of the New York Cen¬ 
tral Railroad, was expected at the Wednes¬ 
day night session, but he was detained 
by illness. He was represented by Mr. J. 
S. Deans, who stated that the Central had 
already arranged for three demonstration 
farms along its lines. Mr. Geo. A. Cullen 
represented the Lackawanna Railroad. He 
also announced that his road was ready 
to buy and equip demonstration farms. 
Mr. Jackson, industrial agent of the Erie, 
was present, and told of his scheme to 
equip trains to carry Cornell teachers over 
his road to lecture on farm subjects. 
Altogether it was a notable gathering; 
never before in the Stale was there such 
a gathering in the interests of agriculture. 
Never diil we see more enthusiasm or more 
earnestness. There were presidents of 
schools and colleges; professors, teachers; 
lawyers, deans, railroad men. editors and 
publishers—all intent on ways and means 
to educate the farmer; but there were few 
real working farmers represented in the 
discussions, and no great number of them 
in the audience. Those who might properly 
he called farmers were men who for the 
most part made a business of other lines. 
It was a subject that: was perhaps best 
discussed by the class of men who were 
there to discuss it. But one gathered from 
the burden of their discussions that they 
were concerned more for the tonnage of 
transportation companies and the feeding 
of city residents than for the business in¬ 
terests of tin 1 farm. The manufacturer 
wanted cheaper food for his workmen, the 
railroad wanted more products to carry, 
the economists saw the home consumption 
gaining on production, and measured the 
time when, under present tendencies, the 
farms of America would not produce 
enough to feed our population. The rem¬ 
edy for it all was education for tin 1 farmer, 
education of the head and hand that would 
enable him to double bis present produc¬ 
tion. By this it was thought to keep the 
ambitious sons and daughters on the farm, 
to produce food for the factory hands, who 
are better paid, and the city middleman, 
who exacted his unjust toll, or the city 
speculator, who made and lost millions 
In a day through gambling In farm prod¬ 
ucts. There was no suspicion of a thought 
to help the farmer get a fair share of 
what he is now producing, and by making 
farming more profitable make it more at¬ 
tractive to men and women seeking a busi¬ 
ness and a vocation, and more certain to 
hold those who are now struggling with 
its complex and difficult problems. The 
swing of thought was all educational lines, 
and a word of this would disturb the har¬ 
mony of the whole proceeding and atia- 
thomlze the speaker rash enough to inject 
it. And yet sooner or later it will come 
to this. I<et us educate I hi 1 country chil¬ 
dren by till mean's. Education will help 
them the more to seek and to find the 
best compensation for their life work. The 
country boy and the country girl will go 
encouraged and enriched with this new 
education to the strife and enterprise of 
oportunity, and in the future, as in the 
past, they will bi> found forging their way 
to the front in the professions and in the 
commercial and manufacturing enterprises 
of the country. It is well that the cities 
are beginning to see hunger ahead. They 
have had their way long enough. They 
need not expect that the country boy is 
going to carry them on his shoulders for 
ever. Education will never make an am¬ 
bitious boy satisfied with 35 cents of the 
dollar. J. J. d. 
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