238 
77* RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
February. 12, 192t 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
A farmer asked me the other day what 
I let my children read and study at school 
or at home. 1 put down my own book 
and looked about me at our folks before 
the fire. I confese that instead of read¬ 
ing: a station bulletin or an essay on corn 
culture or egg production. 1 am reading 
a book on psychology. Mother is read¬ 
ying "Main .Street," the b<*t picture of 
life in a small town 1 have seen. My 
daughter has a book of old English po- 
i'etry. The Japanese boy is not very 
strong on literature, but tonight he seems 
to be reading- a little book on Abraham 
Lincoln. The children are reading books 
about a very lively gentleman known as 
■“Tarzan,” an Indian story, one of Thack¬ 
eray’s novels, and "Lorna Doone." It 
is a mean, "blizzardy” night outside, and 
I think we all have, without realizing it,' 
tried to climb aboard the airplane of iijn-* 
agination and fly above the world to 
where frozen water pipes and chilblains 
and wet fuel never trouble. 1 imagine that 
the people who brought me up would 
have taken away every book here, except 
possibly two, and thrown them right into 
the lire. Certainly my book and these 
lively stories would have gone to make 
fuel, for fear lest they kindle an unholy 
flame in the mind ! That was the way 
they treated my humble attempts to jour¬ 
ney into literature. Why. then, do you 
not bring up your own children in the 
same way? Because, happily, I can re¬ 
member my own youth, and.I know how 
that policy affected me. It drove me to 
what the old folks called criminal habits 
of reading. I crawled off into the barn 
and. in spite of punishments, read 
“dime novels” or anything I could find 
in that neighborhood of restricted read¬ 
ing. Looking back upon it now, I think 
this effort to compel a child to read 
books which must appear dull and stupid 
to him is about the \ orst literary training 
you can give him. I propose to let my 
children read freely the books which have 
a large circulation, because they deal in 
human nature—-true to life. They will 
rise naturally from “Tarzan" to Tyndall 
—and beyond. The greatest blessing of 
education that has ever come, to me is 
the reading habit. You must start that 
in childhood if you are ever to obtain it. 
You cannot start it unless you can begin 
with books suited to your childish mind, 
and take up stronger books as your mind 
grows stronger. I was put at reading 
the "History of Josephus” when 1 was 
12 years old. It would have blasted all 
my desire for reading if I had not stolen 
off to read tales of imagination, under 
the hay mow'—out in the barn. 
* # * « # 
As for telling what your children are 
to study at college, you will have very 
little to say about it. You will find that 
the college has arranged various “courses” 
of study. As a rule, these “courses” do 
not teach much in particular (except 
in agriculture or engineering) for the 
average college aims to train the mind 
rather than the hand or body. The idea 
seems to be to arrange a line of reading 
and study which will force our children 
to adopt habits of thinking and analyzing 
which they can later apply to any line of 
life. I remember once at a country fair 
there was to be a contest in wu-estling. 
We had in our neighborhood a hired man 
who was a wonder for size and strength. 
He entered the contest. For training he 
ate all the meat he could, w'orked hard in 
the hayfiekl, and practiced a “half-nelson” 
on the rest of us. His opponent was a 
much smaller man, who lived in town. 
The local butcher was something of a 
sport, and he sent off and hired a trainer 
to come and show this town man how to 
wrestle. It amused us greatly to see 
this man going through what we called 
"fool motions” while our man out in the 
hay and harvest field, was building up 
great bulging muscles of steel. The en¬ 
tire country turned out to see it. How 
we did yell and jeer when our giant 
walked out. towering far above the other 
man. At the word the big man rushed 
at the other like a bull to end the thing 
at once. Then a strange thing happened. 
The smaller man bent a little, caught the 
giant by the waist, gave him a twist and 
a heave and the very force of the big 
man’s rush carried him over the other 
man’s shoulder and landed him on his 
back 10 feet away! There he lay with 
the breath knocked out of 1 im so com¬ 
pletely that he could not get up. Just 
one of those "fool motions” that we 
laughed at had overcome brute force. In 
every line of life the trained man has the 
advantage over the man who is simply 
big and strong. In every line of train¬ 
ing either mind or body, certain things 
are needed which may seem foolish or 
useless to the successful practical man. 
I do not therefore attempt to tell the 
teachers how T they shall train my chil¬ 
dren. though I confess that I cannot see 
the value of some of their methods. 
s$s ajf i",s 
Rut my farmer friend balks at the 
study of psychology. “What is the good 
of any such stuff?” he says. “Farming 
i«s a practical business. It is both he- 
work and hoe-work.” That is the way 
he put it, and it is a good statement of 
the opinion of manv farmers. It may 
have been true of-the past, but in the fu¬ 
ture I think farming is to be more of a 
she-business and a habit-influence. No 
use talking, the women and girls are to 
have more to do with farming than ever 
before. What I mean is that the women 
will never be satisfied in the future to 
work for board and clothes and go with¬ 
out things which other women have as a 
matter of common right. They will in¬ 
sist upon having what belongs to them, 
and that honeot insistence will drive the 
men on to obtain it. For I claim that 
it has ever been in the power of the 
farmer to get just what he deserves out 
of the world’s contribution box whenever 
the real spirit of conquest is put into 
him. The rise of man in habitation and 
comfort from the shade of a tree beside 
a spring, or a cave in a hillside, up to a 
well-appointed palace has ever been 
pushed along by a desire to please woman. 
Of course, the'rt 5 have always been indi¬ 
viduals who from cave trr palace, always 
crowd into the warmest nest, but that is 
.partly the fault of man’s" mate. In gen¬ 
eral, however. farming in the future is to 
be pretty much what woman demands 
and stands for. Grant that my friend 
is right when he says farming is "he 
work It is, but.it is to be directed by 
a “she-influence.” It is therefore of the 
greatest importance that our boys be 
brought up to show the deepest respect 
for women—beginning with their own 
mother. You may say that this honest 
desire to please a good woman is a rather 
frail foundation upon which to build agri¬ 
culture. All right! Study history and 
look into any successful and influential 
farm community and see if you will be 
so -positive. , ' . 
As for habit—it has for centuries been 
the ruling force among both producers 
and consumers. Here is a definition of 
habit: “a constitution or state of mind 
or body which disposes one to certain 
aets or conditions, mental or physical.” 
We have a practical illustration of that 
in the potato market today. In New 
York City two years ago thousands of 
people had adopted certain food habits 
which included potatoes. Then came the 
time of high prices, and stern necessity 
compelled these people to break their 
habits. Slowly and with much com¬ 
plaint. they learned to use. rice, cornmeal 
and macaroni in place of potatoes, 'they 
broke one habit and mended it with an¬ 
other. Now, when potatoes are cheap 
once more these people are not buying, 
because they have learned to like the 
substitutes, and save money by eating 
them. In order to bring the potato mar¬ 
ket back to what it should be someone 
must go all through the old work of edu¬ 
cating the people once more so as to 
make them understand the superiority of 
potatoes. We went through the same 
thing with the sale of apples years ago. 
We had the world gathered around the 
apple barrel. Then came the high prices 
and people stopped eating. This year, 
with the overwhelming crop, we find the 
habit of eating apples largely broken. The 
public must be taught over again. The 
same thing is true of a dozen other farm 
products. Coal has been very expensive 
and I could have sold wood at a fair 
price, but most people are all out of the 
habit of burning wood. Thus, no mat¬ 
ter how hard a farmer may work to pro¬ 
duce a crop, or how skillful he may be in 
putting it on the market, a change in the 
habit of eating or living may upset his 
efforts unless he or his representatives 
can understand something of psychology 
—for that is the science of the mind. For 
mind is superior to matter, and ever will 
be. We have spent much time studying 
(ho habits of animals and plants and 
chemical elements—greatly to our advan¬ 
tage. Now we must study the mental 
habits of human beings - for our cus¬ 
tomers eat their food and wear their 
clothing not with their stomach and hack 
so much as with their mind and eye. 
s|! V ❖ •< •f 
Yes, and in our efforts to organize and 
make our power felt old habits of farm 
life are the hardest obstacles in our way. 
Take the case of co-operative buying. 
Most of us have fallen into lite habit of 
buying feeds and fertilizer on credit and 
all ready mixed for us. In order to buy 
co-operatively we must pay cash and 
learn to use the separate grains or chem¬ 
icals. This will mean breaking a long 
fixed habit and that explains why it has 
been so hard in the past to do co-oper¬ 
ative work. Too many of us have fallen 
into the habit of criticizing our neighbors 
and friends. That habit stands in tlm 
way of fair combination. We have got 
to change our “gossip” and discuss the 
good things about other people before we 
can ever hope to combine properly. Then 
most of us have political habits that have 
long been fixed. Evidently we cannot 
get very far along the way unless we 
can break some of those habits up. Other¬ 
wise they will hang on the pest like a set¬ 
ting hen. and hatch out a brood of trou¬ 
bles. I think the new leaders in the pres¬ 
ent farm movement realize these things. 
That is why they are trying to build 
their campaigns on a big and broad foun¬ 
dation. You can get a man to give up 
his money and his labor hut unless he can 
give up some of his habits he will not 
get very far. I want my children to study 
psychology because it is the science of 
mind. I think it will help them to change 
their habits whenever plain common 
sense shows the necessity for it. I wish 
some one would write a book on the sub¬ 
ject applied directly to the present farm 
problems. h. w. c. 
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