496 WlSCOIfSIH STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
the farmer, needs this? I would have him familiar with all the 
natural sciences. As it is now with most of us, if, in our general 
reading, we chance to stumble upon an article that requires a 
knowledge of chemistry to read it understandingly, we skip it and 
go on to the next. A book with the title of botany, vegetable 
physiology, agricultural chemistry, entomology, zoology, we shun 
as we would Greek, as something we are not educated to under¬ 
stand. Now, I would have the farmer educated to the point of 
reading and understanding all these books. II the foundation is 
not started at school, if the tender twig is not inclined in this di¬ 
rection, but is forced to grow in another, then it will be hard to 
chano-e its course in mature life. 
And now a word as to our schools as they now are. I think there 
is a growing feeling among the farmers, that the studies in the high 
school are not arranged quite to meet the wants of the farmers’ 
boys. There is a feeling that our schools are managed with a view, 
more especially, to fit boys for college. That is, if you go beyond 
a certain point, all the studies are in that direction. Now, the study 
of French, and Latin, and Greek, and of the higher mathematics, is 
of the greatest importance to a student training himself mentally 
for a minister or a lawyer. Yes, I believe that just so far as we 
give our sons this peculiar training, just so far we unfit them for 
farmers. A fond father, perhaps, seeing the great benefit to be de¬ 
rived from an education which was, in early life, denied him, re¬ 
solves to do better by his son. The boy passes through the studies 
taught in the district school and gets admitted to the high; he 
spends two or three years in this school and stands high in his class. 
How proud the father feels at the examination to hear his bright 
son read French and Latin, or what to him is mere jargon, algebra 
or geometry! The boy graduates with honor and goes back upon 
the farm to work; with what satisfaction the father feels that now 
his son is prepared to settle down upon the farm contented and 
happy; that his fine education will help him to make all the crook¬ 
ed things in farming straight, that he will help and advise him, and 
be a support to him in his declining years. Let me ask how many 
such anticipations are to-day realized? 
In days past, when but few received any more than just enough 
schooling to be able to write a poor letter, or to calculate interest 
upon a note, this course of study was the right one—the few who 
