5 2 
ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 
they must go where they can ; and go they will, with a misapprehen 
sion of the farm and farm life, which is an equal injury to themselve 
and society. No where should civilization show forth the true dignit 1 
of her advance plainer than on the farm. While the city follows he : 
advancing steps with dissipation and debasement of her opportunities 
the country should seize and conserve her gifts in their purity. Th* 
farm has room for everything but the vices attendant upon civilization 
It is as a school room that, perhaps, the farm is least worthily rec 
ognized. To send boys and girls away to colleges and boarding school 
is not usually to help their appreciation of the farm, or to materially 
fit them to use its resources for education, or develop its grander possi 
bilities as a home. 
But to assist them to as much of an education on the farm, ant 
from the farm as possible. That is, to show them how much roon 
there is on it, and to compel their respect. And, that is practica 
preparation for a practical life. 
The farm is the natural kindergarten, where the little ones shoulc 
learn order and cleanliness from nature ; active, intelligent labor fron 
the insects ; arithmetic from the flowers ; the elements of geometry 
from natural objects, and the musical joy of birds. 
Delightful, indeed, would be their lessons in geography from theii 
native hills, and vales and streams ; and none happier than the instruc¬ 
tive hours of child-life, spent in guiding little rills in channels, illustrat¬ 
ing the mighty rivers of the earth, or building the shapes of the con¬ 
tinents with earth and stone and sand. And this is practical geogra¬ 
phy ; much more of an education than the inaminate pouring over £ 
geographical paper, patch-work of red, green and yellow states. 
Children would always rather their play should mean something, 
and no where is there room for it to mean more, educationally, thar. 
on the farm. But the education capacity of the farm is not merel} 
primary ; there is not a branch of common-school studies that ma} 
not here be pursued, and with advantage to most of them, as well as 
to the health and happiness of the pupils. 
The boy with a bent tor engineering should be assisted to build 
his dams and bridges over the pretty turbulent brook in workman¬ 
like shape, and with regard to scientific principles, thus to learn how 
great engineering feats have been accomplished with rivers. A brook 
illustrates the laws of currents, the making of new and abandoning of 
old channels, the deposition of sediment, the formation of islands and 
even deltas, as well as a large stream. 
It is to the natural sciences that the children will be indebted for 
the truest ideas of the value and nature of the farm. 
When through botany they have learned the variety and beauty 
of the plant-life supported by the farm, from the oaks to the mosses at 
their roots or the lichens on their trunks ; when zoology has made 
them acquaintances of the woodchuck and his burrow on the hillside, 
the birds resting in the woods or meadows, the butterflies that flit 
across the path, the myriads of beetles, armored splendidly in bronze, 
gold and purple, the hosts of exquisite microscopic creatures that pop¬ 
ulate every pool of stagnant water, then have they some idea of the 
room nature has on the farm. , 
