198 
lahe RURAL NEW-YORKER 
February 9, 101S 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
liKADixo Uaijit. —A successful business 
man told me the other day that f(u- many 
ycai’s he felt that a college education was 
tiseless if not a handicaj). lie had “made 
Rood” without it, theiefore it was not 
necessary! Now he had chaiiRed his 
mind atid the way this change came about 
struck me as a new one. This man made 
a reasonable fortune—more than any hon¬ 
est man of his tastes ever could spend, 
lie then began to realize that a man 
can eat and drink only a certain amount! 
He can wear certain clothing, obtain 
shelter and comfort, travel about and see 
things. At one time this man felt no 
envy for a king as he ate pork and beans 
from a tin plate. Now he can aflord to 
eat teri-apin from a silver dish, yet it 
does not satisfy him, and he suddenly 
wake.s up to find that the material things 
of life may make very miserable ''om- 
jianions when they are all you have. 
Without knowing it, what this man lacks 
is the reading habit. 
INIi.M) Mastkhs. —lie thinks a college 
education would have given him “a world 
f)f information.” It would have been a 
small world and much of the information 
would have been forgotten. lie could 
have obtained inspiration and vision from 
r(>ading and training, for in these lie the 
great value of college education. Some 
men are able to train themselves through 
reading, for they can get the author’s 
meaning and the truth of it comes to 
(hem. At college you have it explained 
and analyzed. Sometime.s. I grant, the 
exj)lanation is attempted by minds which 
an' not fi’ee or are narrow and i)rejudiced 
or one-sided so that they try to show 
that the “itraetical” side of life is all that 
is needed or else sneer at the practical 
side. liut, in any event, the great object 
of education is not to stuff the human 
head with information but to give the 
student the finest possible group of silent 
companions which may walk with him 
through life. If my friend, the business 
man, had received a good college ti’aining 
he would not now be limited to material 
things for his enjoyment, but would have 
all the great characters who live in books 
for his daily companions. 
Faithi-xii. Friends. — We have had 
three more snowstorms since I wrote last 
week and a ‘‘zero wave” is promised for 
tomorrow. Fnder such circumstances a 
farmer and his family will need all the 
comiianions they can find. We ai’e shut 
in today, but the house is full of good 
company. One of the little girls is read¬ 
ing ‘‘What Katy Did.” Years ago my 
daughter called that the finest book that 
could be written. Now she is reading 
‘‘The Soul of a Bishop”—a companion in 
its way carrying something of the old 
pimblems of happiness which confronted 
“Kat.v.” One of the boys is deep in ‘‘The 
Little Savage.” I look over his shoulder 
and road along his finger as he moves it 
along the page: 
‘‘Oo after him, Turk ! Sic him ! Sic 
him !” 
It is a coon hunt. As that boy grows 
up he will walk with larger hunting dogs 
and call ‘‘Sic him !” as they go out after 
bigg<'r coons that gnaw into society. I 
lioite he will run with the dogs in that 
day. Another boy is reading “Ivanhoe.” 
Siiy—wouldn’t it be great if you w(‘re 
back at the time when all those knights 
and ladies seemed so real and you could 
forget the snow and the c-old as you 
walked with Bobin Hood or gazed after 
the beautiful Rebecca? I can tell you 
that Ml'. Hoover’s task would be lighter 
if all men and women had the reading 
habit as well grafted into them as our 
folks have. Brown bread and pot cheese 
served with a good book would quite take 
the place of meat and wheat with no 
silent companions to lead them up higher. 
I think it was Mai-k Twain who said 
Walter Scott was jiaidly responsible for 
sending the South into the Civil War. 
What he meant was that the iieople took 
these I'omances litei'all.v and forgot that 
the world had moved on into more mod¬ 
ern times. At any rate my children have 
this I'eading habit and I would rather 
leave them a ci'aving for good literature 
than to collect a barrel of money for them 
to spend with only material companions. 
Oi.i) Fdttcation. —That was one thing 
about the old country schools which I re¬ 
member as a boy. In nearly evei-y dis¬ 
trict there were several families of edu¬ 
cated or well-read ixeople and they influ- | 
enced the school. No one knows the good 
that an educated man or woman c<iuld do 
ill these days b.v starting the reading 
habit at the school. 1 went to school at 
the ‘‘center.” The i»oorhouse or town 
farm was located in that district and 
about 70 iier emit of the juipils were the 
children of iiaiijiers. Most of the farmers 
were elderl.v ])eoi)le—chihlless and rather 
“close,” to put it mildly. Yet the.y stood 
b.v the school, hired a good teacher and 
took an interest in education. I am (juite 
sure th.at some of these iiaujier children 
jiicked up the reading habit and were led 
by those silent coinjianions' to rise up, 
away from the town farm, and enter the 
bigger and higher things of life. So it has | 
come to me everywhere to know the value 
of the reading habit. 'It should be made 
the foundation of evei-y system of educa¬ 
tion. 
Fducatjon a Bxtsi.nics.s. — The law 
does not affect xis personally in New 
.lerse.v, though we live scarcely three miles ' 
from the New York line. I am struck by 
several curious things in the discussion. 
The man.v who opjiose the law give short, I 
direct I'casons showing its actual effect or | 
results at their school. The few who ' 
favor it give long essays going into elabo- | 
rate details as to A\hat the law will finall.v 
accomplish. It makes me think of the 
man who said there were two classes of 
])eoi)le—“Issers” and “(Joingtobes.” Some 
of the ai'guments for the law would fill 
several full pages of ’TilK R. N.-Y 'Phere 
are IS or 20 pi-otests to one favoiable 
argument. It is evident to me that educxi- 
tion has now become a definite busines.s. 
There is a well-oi'ganized gi'oui> of forcible 
jieoplc who feel that the.v kmrw just what 
is best for our children. The.v have built 
up a very good machine and I should say 
that the chief object of it is to ultimately 
turn out college graduates. It is of 
course true that the great majority of 
our childi'on must stop at the grammar 
school. A few go on to the high school 
and college. But I think our educational 
machine has got the wrong idea in its 
scheme of education. The chief aim 
should not be to turn out high school and 
college graduates, but to make the pri- 
mar.v and graded schools as sti'ong as is 
possible, for these are the places where 
the great majority of our people must be 
educated. I would jiut the most of the 
money and the finest of the teachers into 
the pi'imary and graded schools and imt 
it largely up to the jiarents to pa.v most 
of the high school tuition if the.v wanted 
(heir children to have that training. I 
would put the lower schools as close as 
possible to the homes of the pupils and 
put them ahead of the high schools in 
attention and public interest. That is, I 
question (he wisdom of ex|)ecting the inih- 
lic or the State to ])rovide higher educa¬ 
tion for the small ixroiiortion of puitils 
who go through high school, especially 
when, as I think is .sometimes true, this 
high school education means a sacrifice 
for the jirimary and graded .schools. I 
think (he ])ublic should help give my chil¬ 
dren a fair grammar school education, but 
I do not see that the jiublic is bound to 
give m.v children any higher education. 
I think that is a iiersonal joh for me. Of 
course in this I sjieak of rural schools. 
I realize that this is I'ank heresy in the 
eyes of the educators, but it is what more 
than half a century of knocking about has 
tauglit me. 
IMa.iority Rights. —Have the majority 
of iiatrons or taxpayers any rights in a 
controvers.v of this soi-tV No one has 
thus far attempted to deny that a large 
majority of rural peoide oiipose this New 
York law. It is somewhat like a case of 
75 people saying the.v do not want a thing 
and 10 or 12 people saying you have got 
to take it because you do not know what 
is best for you. Do the educators know 
more of the needs of rural iieople than 
thes<' same peojile do? M.v experience has 
been (hat as a rule the thought and prac¬ 
tice of the majority is usually right or 
so firmly fixed ehat to try to root it 
out would make a. wt’oag. With the evi¬ 
dent feeling among people I do 
not believe the educators cun enforce this 
law so as to gi-eatly urduouo emdirions. 
Fven if it were admitted that thf Taiv is 
superior in all or some respects tp the 
old one, can any small group of educators 
woi’king at a distance compel a majority, 
hittei'ly opjxosed to them, to accept tbii- 
law and work it out successfully? That, 
I think, is the fundamental proposition, 
(Continued on page 
I 
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