Menticulture and agriculture;

MENTICULTURE

AND

AGRICULTURE:

OR,

WHAT OUR SCHOOLS SHOULD DO FOR AGRICULTURE

By b. G. NORTHROP,

Secretary of the Connecticut Board of Education.

[From THE Report OF THE CONNECTICUT BoaRD or EpucaTion. |

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TUTTLE, MOREHOUSE & TAYLOR, PRINTERS.
. 1881.

MENTICULTURE

AND

© AGRICULTURE:

OR,

WHAT QUR SCHOOLS SHOULD DO FOR AGRICULTURE.

By BG: NORTHROP,

Secretary of the Connecticut Board of Education.

[FroM THE REPORT OF THE CONNECTICUT BOARD OF EDUCATION. ]

NEW HAVEN:
TUTTLE, MOREHOUSE & TAYLOR, PRINTERS.
1881.

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WHAT OUR SCHOOLS SHOULD DO FOR
AGRICULTURE.*

Farming is the leading and most essential business of the
country, occupying more than three-fourths of our laboring
population. It is the basis of the wealth, prosperity and
power of the American people. Its depreciation would de-
moralize thé nation. It was the original, divinely appointed
calling of man. God planted a garden in Eden and made
it man’s first duty to “ dress and keep it.” When driven from
Eden, it was still his mission to “till the ground from whence
he was taken and to eat bread in the sweat of his face.” The
Creator plainly intended that Agriculture should be the ground-
work of civilized society, the basis of all progress. On its
prosperity hang the hopes of the race, far more than on any
other calling. It must provide the means of sustaining an in-
creasing population, or there can be no growth. Commerce
and manufactures depend upon it more than it does upon
them. In the words of Webster, “they all stand together like
pillars in a cluster, the largest in the center, and that largest is
Agriculture.” For an interest so broad and vital to the pros-
perity of the whole country, our schools should accomplish the
best possible results.

Now that slavery is abolished, we have no vestige of a caste
system in America. Labor is honorable, and the laborer is
honored. The most popular rallying cry to help a candidate
for the highest office, is some term which affiliates him with
farmers or other workmen, like “the rail-splitter” or “the
tow-path boy.” In contrast with the distinct classes and hered-
itary nobilities of the old world, it is our proud national char-
acteristic, that we are a working people; that he is the noblest
who works most and best for the general weal, and that the
cause of the workman is recognized as the cause of all. The

* Given as the opening address before the State Agricultural Convention at

New Britain, December 15, 1880.
A2

4 OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE.

best way to elevate farming is to elevate the farmer. The peo-
ple are learning that mere muscle is weak, and that brains help

the hands in all work; that knowledge and skill multiply the

value and productive power of muscular efforts. Whatever
the chemical analyses of our Experiment Station may show,
the best of all fertilizers is brains. In farming as everywhere,
if knowledge is power, ignorance is impotence. What a man
és, stamps an impress upon what he does, on the farm or in the
shop. The style of the work depends on the character of the
workman. Whatever elevates the farmer ultimately improves
his farming. Whatever degrades the farmer at once depre-
ciates his work. The wealth and welfare of individuals and
communities, always dependent on labor, can be most fully
secured only by educated labor. You can dignify farming in
no way so surely as by educating and thus elevating the farmer.
As mind triumphs over matter, the amount of manual labor
requisite to secure equal results constantly lessens. The future
improvement of farming depends on brain as well as brawn.
The progress of ‘civilization has always been commensurate
with man’s dominion over nature and his utilization of her
forces and resources. ‘ Subdue the earth and have dominion
over it,” was the primeval command. We gain that dominion
over nature just in proportion as we discover and obey her
laws. In struggles for material success, he wins who best
wields physical forces.

To enable our schools to accomplish better results for Agri-
culture, I invite our farmers to do more for the schools, and
especially to visit them. We need a still higher appreciation
of them and a more active and intelligent interest in their im-
provement. Apathy on the part of parents would neutralize
the efforts of the best teachers. The character of the schools
in every place must answer to the local public sentiment. You
stimulate public interest by improving the schools no more
surely than you improve the schools by elevating public opin-
ion. The Legislature alone cannot create good schools. Right
laws may accomplish much, but the people, once in earnest,
will do more. In our rural districts no class can so effectually
advance this great interest of the people as the farmers.

The most essential service our Public Schools can render for

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f wot
’

OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 5

Agriculture, is to give all our youth a thorough training in the

‘common English branches. These lay the foundation for suc-
_eess in all after work, whether on the farm, in the shop, or

store. The point of greatest weakness even in our colleges is
found in the deficiency of their candidates in the elementary
branches. Thoroughness here at the outset means thorough-
ness everywhere. The habits of accuracy, of application, of
self-control, and self-reliance in overcoming difficulties early
formed in school, constitute the best preparation for the farm
and all other callings of life. Far more thought and time and

_ drill should be given to these simple elements. Rightly taught,

they provide the truest discipline for the juvenile mind and
form the best basis for all future acquisitions. When we
build the superstructure without a firm foundation, all is inse-
eure. The first effort of the school is to lay the ground work
broad and strong. That done, and you create the desire and
the skill to build up the edifice ; that done and school is a wel-
come place, and study becomes a pleasure ; that done and there
follows such a hungering for knowledge that when one’s school
days are ended, he realizes that his education is but just begun,
and for the rest, it shall be the aim and pleasure of his life to
educate himself. Even though the milking may summon him
early in the morning and the chores detain him late at night, he
will seek time and find time for the cherished work of self-
improvement. Place him where you will, let his work press as
it may, he will find leisure for reading, and occupy rainy days,
the long winter evenings, and all intervals of labor in efforts
for self-improvement. Even the odd moments thus utilized, in
the end yield a large reward. The habit of utilizing these odd
moments and thus learning how to economize time as well as
money, has most important moral bearings. The boy who
thus early learns that “life is real, life is earnest,’ and makes
the most of each passing hour, is gaining self-command and
self-respect, high aims and purposes that lift him above tempta-
tion and give him the true farmer’s self-poise and conscious in-
dependence.

To secure the best results for our farmers, I would advocate
giving greater prominence to reading, which I have long re-
garded as by far the most important study taught in our

6 OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE.

schools. This is the surest way to the mastery of all higher
studies. Early proficiency here, fosters a fondness for books,
while aversion to study often springs from tasking youth in
severer branches before they can read fluently. Let a child early
learn to read with facility and, as I have aimed to show in
another connection, he has the key by which he can open
any door in the temple of science. Isolated as the farmer’s
homes necessarily are, to a great extent, reading should be
made the never failing attraction of the long winter evenings.
But when it is a toilsome process to spell out the words, there
can be little pleasure in reading, or interest in the narrative.
It is the duty or rather the privilege of the farmer to see to it
that his children are liberally supplied with attractive and
wholesome reading, whether by the purchase, or exchange of
books, or by reading clubs, or by a town or district library.
Whenever its importance is duly felt, some method of gaining
the proper supply will be devised.

For the best results to our farmers and to all industrial
classes, less time should be given to the complex puzzles of
arithmetic and more to the simple ground rules. Master addi-
tion, subtraction, multiplication, division, per-centage, and the
keeping of accounts and the rest which is of practical value is
easily and quickly gained. Our arithmetics are too volumin-
ous. Let there be more drill in rapid mental combinations
and practical methods and principles and less study of abstruse
processes. Such topics as alligation medial and alternate, and
commutation of radix and others as intricate and useless, may
well be omitted in a common school course. These and kin-
dred topics never applied in ordinary business fill a large space
in the arithmetics and waste much precious time of the pupils.
They have the sanction of tradition rather than of common
sense. In continuing them, teachers and authors have con-
sulted usage more than utility. Like the titled scions of rank
in the old world, they have come down by so long a literary
descent, that no one disputes their right to their honored
place. Worth more than all these obsolete processes, is the
thorough mastery of the ground rules. Rapid mental combi-
nations should be daily practiced till pupils can add, multiply
and divide with the utmost rapidity and accuracy. The art of

—

OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. ; 7

arithmetic will thus be mastered though the profundities of
the science be not explored. Ex-President Thomas Hill of
Harvard College, himself an eminent mathematician, strongly
condemns the common practice of stupefying and disgusting
pupils with premature attempts to understand arithmetic as a
science, while as a consequence they fail to acquire facility in
it as an art. Life is not long enough to spend so much time
on the intricacies of compound proportion, permutation and
the like, that not one in a thousand ever applies in business.
The public school should train our youth in habits of ob-
servation, which is the prime secret of success in farming and
forms the true basis of all higher education. The child’s in-
tellectual life begins with impressions from the senses, which
are the windows of the soul. The noblest of these and the
royal avenue to the mind is the eye. This sense-education,
commences in the cradle and should continue through life.
Hence “ things before names, ideas before words,” and in higher
stages, “principles and processes before rules” should be the
motto. Too often the teacher begins with books and continues
with books only, teaching that which is impractical if not in-
comprehensible to the neglect of things nearest at hand, things
most interesting, suggestive and useful. God designed nature
to be the earliest and’ most constant teacher of the juvenile
mind, and has made objects and events the leading instruments
of developing its faculties. Invaluable as are books, they are
but the art of man, while nature is the art of God. It is
therefore a narrow view of education that makes books its
only instruments. Every device should be employed to foster
a love of nature and form habits of careful observation of com-
mon things. The organs of sense, when not early trained, be-
come rigid and unimpressible. The teacher who relies upon
the text-book alone is more than three thousand years behind
Job, whose maxims deserve a place in the most modern didac-
tics. “Ask now the beasts and they shall teach thee and the
fowls of the air and they shall tell thee; or speak to the
earth and it shall teach thee; and the fishes of the sea shall de-
clare unto thee.” Such a teacher forgets the motto of the
wise man who said, “Go to the ant thou sluggard ; consider

her ways and be wise,” or that of the Great Teacher who said,
A3

8 OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE.

“‘Qonsider the lilies of the field how they grow,” and “ Be-
hold the fowls of the air.” Milton well says: “To know those
things which about us lie, in the daily life is the prime wis-
dom.”

I commend to our farmers’ boys the advice given to youth
by Hugh Miller: “ Learn to make a right use of your eyes, the
commonest things are worth looking at, even stones, weeds
and the most familiar animals. One of the best schools I ever
attended was the miscellany of objects and circumstances sur-
rounding me in my native district, challenging the first exer-
cise of my senses and fancy, and this is a species of education
open to all.” True, but how few are open to it. How many
go through the world practically blindfolded. Under the lead
of his Uncle Sandy the keen-eyed harness-maker, Hugh Miller
while a boy, had observed carefully the rocks, rains, tides,
trees, ferns, shell-fish, sea-fowl and insects along the rocky
shore of his native Cromarty. While working seventeen
years as stone mason in the quarries or sheds, he studied the
stones he was hammering and thus became the most eminent
geologist of his age. So in general, the most distinguished
men of all ages and countries have been close students of
nature and observers of common things.

I have emphasized this subject becatise the careful observa-
tion of nature’s processes is specially essential to the success of
the farmer. Unless acquired early, the habit is not likely to be
ever formed. This work cannot be done by proxy. The
judgment of the farmer must be based on his personal obser-
vations. Indispensable as is the knowledge gained from books,
its use and application depend on one’s own study of things.
The failures of fancy farmers come from following book theo-
ries without that adaptation to changed local conditions which
personal observation and experience alone can suggest. Hence,
both in the family and school, curiosity should be so stimu-
lated as to prompt an insatiable desire for that knowledge
which comes through the senses when trained in observing the
qualities of common things. Curiosity, or what is kindred,
love of knowledge, is. one of the strongest natural desires of
the child. Though too often dwarfed by our blundering,
when the senses are sharpened, it is one of the most vital

OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. : a

forces in education, becoming the parent of perception and
attention, of memory, imagination and expression. It pre-
pares the soil and fertilizes the seeds of truth. A farmer
might as well sow a field without plowing as a teacher in-
struct pupils in whose minds no love of knowledge has been
awakened. Strong in childhood, it should grow with years and
attainments. Though at first a restless instinct, it should
mature into a ruling passion. Curiosity is to the mind what
appetite is to the body. It creates a hungering for knowledge
which is the mind’s food. Love of truth was as strong a pas-
sion with Newton or Agassiz as love of conquest with Napo-
leon. Under its healthful inspiration, study is a pleasure—
without it a task; the dullest drudgery, “a weariness of the
flesh.” Curiosity is the primal desire to which the child’s
nature responds; it is the impelling power to which genius,
when enriched with the treasures of science, is most suscepti-
ble. The amplest supplies only add fuel to the flame. Instead
of surfeit, there comes an intenser craving for more. Each
new attainment gives strength and stimulus for higher acqui-
sitions.

To show how susceptible is the plastic mind of child-
hood when consciously brought into contact and sympathy
with nature, by a teacher competent to be her interpreter, I
mention two out of a multitude of similar illustrations. An
eminent botanist narrated to me the following personal inci-
dent: “When I was a mere boy, my teacher handed me a
flower, asking me to notice a// its parts, and when I had done
so for the first time in my life, he gave their several botanic
names, introducing each with its Saxon synonym, which I
never forgot. That brief talk of twenty minutes inspired me
with an interest in observation and study that led to collegiate
culture.” Said another gentleman, author of popular text-
books on Natural History, “ My teacher once invited me to
search on my father’s farm for curious stones. I found a white
stone with sharp edges, of which he said, that is a good speci-
men, though very common, for three-quarters of the earth’s
crust is made up of this stone. It is very useful. The grains
and grasses get the sharpness and strength of their stalks from
a minute portion of this stone which the rootlets dissolve and

10 . OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE.

send up for their growth. It is useful in the arts. You have
it also in the wall and in common plaster. Glass is made
of it, only a little stuff is mixed with it to make it work well,
and the very best spectacle glasses are made of pure specimens
of stone like this, showing me a pure quartz crystal, and point-
ing out its exact hexagonal form and pyramidal cap. That
brief talk changed my history and fired my mind with love of
learning.”

The farmers’ boys have the best opportunities of learning
these practical lessons from nature, provided the teacher is com-
petent to start him in the right lines of observation. On the
farm, birds, insects, fishes and all animals, flowers and foliage,
plants, shrubs, creeping vines and trees, to say nothing of the
minerals under his feet, are ali practical primary teachers.

In the interests of Agriculture and all industrial pursuits,
our youth should be taught at school the necessity of labor, its
vital relation to all human excellence and progress, the evils of
indolenece and the absurdity of the common aversion to manual
labor. This popular distaste for industrial pursuits should be
early counteracted and the silly and pernicious notions that
labor is menial, and that the tools of the farm or of a trade are
badges of servility should be refuted in our schools, and more
should there be said and done to dignify labor and render in-
dustrial pursuits attractive and reputable. The Agricultural,
Forestral and Industrial - Schools, so numerous in Germany,
Switzerland and other portions of Europe, have proved as efti-
cient in dignifying labor as in increasing its efficiency and
market value. Girls, as well as boys, are there early taught,
both in the family and school, that to learn to be useful is alike
their duty, privilege and interest.

Many of our youth are afflicted with an ambition for easier
lives and more genteel employments, and with the infatuation
that city clerkships are the most eligible positions, while farm-
ing and the trades are not “respectable.” Let them learn that
the intelligent farmers or mechanics have a better chance of
securing wealth, health and influence, than the over-crowded
city clerkships can afford. In any average farming commu-
nity, let twenty young men form a stay-at-home association and
employ their best skill in rural pursuits; and another twenty,

OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. d I

we will suppose of the same capacity and education, start in
quest of city clerkships, and, at the end of twenty years, | am
confident our stay-at-homes would, on the average, have better
health, better characters, greater influence and more money
than the twenty who turned their backs on the humble indus-
tries of the country.

Clerks are often paid less than skillful mechanics, and are less
independent. In their precarious. positions, they are lable to
disappointments and humiliating struggles with the thousands
of others “looking for a place.” Every advertisement for a
elerk brings a whole swarm of applicants. How pitiable the
condition of this superabundance of book-keepers and ex-
changers wasting their lives waiting for a place, while our
farms and factories, railroads and trades, are clamoring for
educated superintendents, foremen, engineers, skillful mana-
gers and “cunning workmen.” The position of the educated
and well-trained farmer or mechanic is far preferable to that of
average city clerks. The latter may dress better, talk more
glibly, bow more gracefully, not to say obsequiously, but they
compare unfavorably with our best farmers and mechanics in
manly independence, vigor of thought and strength of char-
acter.

Too many of our young men leave the homestead on adven-
tures less safe and reliable than the arts of industry. A good
trade is more honorable and remunerative than peddling maps,
books, pictures, patent-rights and clothes-wringers, or in a city
store to be cash or errand boy, store-sweeper, fire-kindler or
even book-keeper. Without in any way disparaging the useful
position of the clerk, our young men may properly be cau-
tioned against further crowding this already plethoric profes-
sion. To the boys in the country I say, instead of aspiring to
an uncertain and precarious clerkship, stick to the farm or learn
a trade, and you will lay the broadest foundation for prosperity.

The value of work as an educator hitherto too little appre-
ciated, needs to be taught in our schools. Children learn by
doing. This principle underlies the whole Kindergarten sys-
tem. Its prime motto is, “ Do nothing for the child which he
can be encouraged to do for himself.” His planning, combin-
ing, constructing and designing, with simplest materials, foster

12 OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE.

interest and skill in work. It would be a grand achievement if
the Public Schools should lead our youth to realize that their
education is essentially deficient until they have learned to work
in some useful form of industry. Such was the theory and
practice of the ancient Hebrews, carrying out the plan given
them from heaven. That is plainly the Divine plan for the
race. The Hebrews held that all children should be taught
some handicraft as an essential part of education. Among
them labor was always honorable. No man was ashamed of
his trade. No matter what his rank, every one must be trained
to work. The chief of the Apostles did not degrade his high
office by occasionally resuming his trade of tent-maker. By
his own example, he enforced his precept, “if any would not
work, neither should he eat,” and sharpened his censure of
“the disorderly busy-bodies working not at all.” His associates
never suspected that their old business of fishermen was disrep-
utable. Why was it that the Great Teacher, when all possi-
bilities were open to his choice, sought out the humble home of
the carpenter and worked patiently at His reputed father’s
trade, except that He might condemn before the world the un-
christian and heathenish notion that labor is menial. On the
other hand, the Chinese Mandarins who let their nails grow as
long as their fingers, to show that they never work, are the
illustrious predecessors of the pretentious snobs who affect to
despise the industrial arts.

The Jews still maintain their ancestral pride and faith in
work. Notwithstanding long ages of bitter persecution, they
are, as a race, most remarkable for perseverance, energy and
ability. These manly traits have been fostered by their heredi-
tary habits of industry. Debarred by oppressive laws for
many centuries from the ownership of land, and from the
ordinary industrial pursuits, they were driven to trade, which
naturally continues to be their leading occupation, and in
which they have gained marked success by dint of indomita-
ble energy in the face of opposition and manifold difficulties.
In his own life as well as in Endymion, Beaconsfield has strongly
illustrated the power of an indomitable will. In every country,
where the civil disabilities which oppressed them for so many
centuries have been removed, the Jews have soon risen to be

8
OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 13

leaders in education, in the press, in finance, in science and lite-
rature. Their wonderful ability and success seem to be the
secret of the new and strange outburst of medieval intolerance
and hostility which now disgraces Germany. The real trouble
is, that the Jews so often outstrip their rivals and win the prizes
which are open to fair competition. Complaints made in late
German periodicals fully betray this unworthy motive. The
outcry is, “ The Jews are monopolizing the best positions in the
Universities, absorbing millions of money, controlling ex-
change, becoming our leading capitalists and even crowding
into Parliament, and in danger of moulding the destinies of
the nation.” ;

It is a redeeming feature of this outburst of narrowness
that the Crown Prince, who himself once thoroughly learned
a trade, denounces the present persecution of the Jews as
“a shame to Germany.” No man in Germany has done .
more than he to make labor reputable. He has practiced
as well as preached the gospel of work, having early learned
the cabinet-maker’s trade. At Babelsberg, near Potsdam,
the summer palace of the Emperor of Germany, are shown
choicest articles of furniture made by him. When his only
sister, the Grand Duchess of Baden, placed her daughter in
the sch/oss, a famous school in Carlsruhe, she directed that
she should be excused from none of the household industries
required of the other pupils, that she should be trained in
sewing and knitting, and made as thorough a seamstress as if
she were expecting to earn her livelihood by her needle.
Such royal examples of honoring industry have exerted a
vast influence throughout the German Empire.

The tendency on the farm has been to overwork the boys
and allow too little respite for play, for, with the young of all
animals, play is the dictate of nature. The earth, the air and
sea are full of animals who seem to luxuriate in playful activ-
ity. But, while all work and no play represses the jubilant im-
pulses of childhood, the tendency of our times to all play and
no work is far more harmful. Excessive amusements dissipate
the mind, weaken the will and demoralize the whole character—
making one restless, selfish, discontented and dependent. The
habitual idler naturally degenerates into something worse, for

14 OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE.

idleness and vice are twins. Labor, though called the curse
and consequence of sin, may be a blessing to beings constituted
as we are. We need the spur of necessity to energize our
minds. Our richest thoughts and experience, and our best dis-
cipline, come to us when we are intensely active. Toils and
privations even, give strength, endurance and courage for
future achievements. The successful merchant who, with a
fortune, retires from business, and sits down to enjoy himself
with nothing to do but take his comfort, becomes the victim of
ennui, if not of dyspepsia. Industry is essential to thrift and
virtue, to mental, moral and physical health. The devil
tempts every body, but the idler tempts the devil, who gives
plenty of work to all whom he can find with nothing to do.
The historian Froude well says, ‘There are but three ways of
living; by working, by begging, or by stealing; those who do
not work, disguise it in whatever pretty language we please,
are doing one of the other two.” Every man should have one
vocation, and as many avocations as he can. Men of mark are
men of work. The most industrious individuals and races are
the most intelligent and powerful; the most elevated morally
as well as mentally. In whatever land man can subsist in in-
dolence, he droops in intellect, and there is the greatest demor-
alization-in those tropical climates where leisure rather than
labor is the rule of life. Man rises in the scale where his
necessities compel constant industry, as he sinks where his
wants exact no labor. Where industry becomes habitual and
skillful, it not only supplies mere necessities, but stimulates
demands above absolute wants. Every pure enjoyment gained
by labor, prompts the desire for other and higher gratifications.
Theodore Parker said, “The fine arts do not interest me so
much as the coarse arts, which feed, clothe, house, and comfort a
people. I should rather be a great man as Franklin, than a
Michael Angelo; nay, if I had a son, I should rather see him a
mechanic who organized use, like the late George Stephenson,
in England, than a great painter like Rubens, who only copied
beauty.” Edward Forbes says, “ He who knows not what it is
to labor, knows not what it is to enjoy.”

I once began a census of the eminent men of Connecticut,
those who have been most successful in business, or in the

OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 15

various professions, and found that the great majority of them
had the discipline of rural occupations in their youth. The
successive governors of our State, for a long time, with a
single exception, were early accustomed to manual labor. The
town of Lebanon has raised up five governors. Many retired
rural districts and hill towns have been fertile in the richest
treasures of intellect. The Litchfield County Jubilee showed
a proud array of her sons among the most distinguished men of
our country. On the other hand, those who despised labor in
their youth have not been the benefactors of the community
nor of themselves. “The artificers and inventors of the
world, the men who revolutionize human industry and mani-
fold the wealth and power of nations by new machines and
new processes of art—the Watts, the Arkwrights, the Bra-
mahs, the Clements, the Nasmyths, the Stephensons, the Fair-
bairns, the Fultons, the Ericsons, the Goodyears, the Howes,
the McCormicks, have usually had their training on the farm
or in the shops.”

A striking illustration of the value of work as an educator
has been recently furnished by Rev. Washington Gladden, of
Springfield. He sent a circular to one hundred of the most
prominent men of that place, asking, “ Was your home during
the first fifteen years of your life on the farm or in the city,
and were you then accustomed to work when not in school?”
Of the eighty-eight who replied, five only “had nothing par-
ticular to do,” while ninety-four per cent. were farmers’ sons,
or hard working boys. So everywhere, as he clearly shows,
the prizes of life are carried off by the men who learned to
work. Men energized by such discipline are sure to outstrip
those who were dandled in the lap of affluence and enervated
by excessive indulgence. The farmer’s boy learns patience and
persistence by doing tough tasks without flinching. Mr. Glad-
den’s conclusion from his inquiry was, that the boy early
trained to work has eighteen chances of succeeding in life to
one chance for the boy without this discipline.

Farm work, by the great variety of its forms and conditions,
is peculiarly fitted to task and test the mind of a boy in plan-
ning, contriving and adapting means to ends under constantly
varying circumstances. The necessities of the farm teach the

16 OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE.

needful lesson that “where there is a will there is a way.’’.
Coleridge said, “ A perfectly educated character is little else
than a perfectly disciplined will.” The w7ld is by no means
the only faculty to be educated, but its right culture involves
that of every other faculty of the mind and heart. It is the
will that differentiates men. This is the regal power of the
mind, and more than any thing in our intellectual nature con-
stitutes the man. A disciplined will equips the mind for ac-
- tion. An earnest will is the agent of every great achievement.
There is nothing like it to make the mind resolute and success-
ful, loyal to duty, superior to doubt, disdainful of ease, delight-
ing in achievement, and rendering toil, self-denial, exertions in
whatever form, easy and pleasant. A resolute mind will scorn
sloth, love labor, spare no effort, neglect no opportunity to
accomplish its end.

Labor develops inventive talent. The exigences of the
farmer, remote from villages and shops, compel him to be
something of a carpenter, joiner, blacksmith and harness-
maker—a man of all work—* handy at anything.” His busi-
ness varies with the seasons and sometimes changes every day.
A farmer’s boy myself, early trained in practical industry and
familiar with farm work, I have ever valued highly those prac-
tical lessons learned among the rough hills of grand old Litch-
field County.

I counsel even the sons of affluence to spend at least one
season at hard work on the farm or in the shop. The practical
business drill there gained, the knowledge of nature and
domestic animals, will amply compensate for the consequent
loss in book learning, to say nothing of the health and physical
training thus secured. With all our improved gymnastics,
none is better than manual labor, when it is cheerfully and in-
telligently performed, and especially farm work. The habits
of industry, once formed on the farm, or in the shop, may
shape all the future, teaching one to value time, to husband the
odd moments, and to practice diligence in business..

The pupils who luxuriate in the wealthiest homes of the
city would profit by one year in the country with its peculiar
work and play, its freer sports and wider range for rambles by
the springs and brooks, the rivers and waterfalls, the ponds and

OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. LT

lakes, over the hills and planes, through the groves and forests ;
in observing nature, searching for wild flowers and curious
stones, learning to recognize the different trees by any one of
their distinctive marks, viz., the leaf, flower, fruit, form, bark
and grain, watching the ant-hills, collecting butterflies and vari-
ous insects, noticing the birds so as to distinguish them by
their beaks or claws, their size, form, plumage, flight or song.
Studying nature in any one or more of these varied forms,
each so fitted to charm children, would refresh their minds as
well as re-create their bodies.

The simple elements of the practical sciences should be
taught in our schools, at least in oral lessons. A few talks on
Agricultural Chemistry, will invite its fuller study when the
school days are ended, especially in observing the chemical
marvels that will meet one on every rod of his farm. The
lectures given in our Teachers’ Institutes on the geological
characteristics of Connecticut, show how profitably our teach-
ers might each give simple lessons on the prominent physical
features of his town, county and State.. Such talks will inten-
sify the interest of the farmers’ boys in the study of the stones
and rocks which line their pathway. Specimens of our most
common minerals ought to be in all our schools, procurable as
they are by any competent teacher, without cost. No pupil
should leave the Public School without knowing the names
and leading characteristics of at least a dozen of our common
minerals.

Familiar. lessons should also be given about plants and
animals, the laws of health and animal physiology. A few
hints on “how plants grow,” will add interest to the flora
found in such great varieties on every farm. With specimens
in hand, a few minutes devoted to pointing out the difference
between inside growers and outside growers (saying nothing of
endogens and exogens) or between parallel-veined and net-
veined leaves, or the evergreens and those trees which drop
their leaves annually, will awaken a lasting interest in the
study of Botany. How early children may learn the differ-
ence between the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdoms, or
that some animals have jointed back bones, that others have
their bones outside of their bodies, while others have none at

18 . OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE.

all. Such glimpses of the beauties and wonders of science
awaken a healthful desire to observe and study. I remember
well the interest awakened at a Teachers’ Institute in Massa-
chusetts, when Prof. Agassiz gave a lecture on the grasshopper.
Having by the aid of the boys collected several hundred grass-
acne and etherized them so that they would not jump
about, he passed one to each of his auditors. This created
general laughter and seemed ridiculous to many. But soon,
instead of laughing at or looking at him, every one was looking
intently at the object in hand. When he pointed out minute
parts some one said, “Can’t see them;” to which he replied,
*“ Look again and learn to look, for I can see things ten times
smaller than those to which I have called your attention. The
power of the human eye is very great, and it is only the want.
of practice which sets such narrow limits to its powers. By
learning how to examine one thing thoroughly, you learn how
to see any thing. I present this subject to you, teachers, for
the purpose of suggesting the desirableness and method of
teaching Natural History in schools, and of using that instrue-
tion as a means of developing the savenile faculties and lead-
ing them to the knowledge of the Creator.”

If you ask where can teachers be found competent to give
such lessons, I invite you to visit our Normal School and
observe how wel! its pupils are trained in the methods of
teaching the elements of the practical sciences in our schools,
and [ ask the codperation of the farmers in securing better
qualified teachers for their children.

By leading children to plant flowers, shrubs and trees in
the school grounds, as well as around the homestead, and by
brief lessons on rural art, and especially on the beauty, variety
and value of trees, such an interest in their study and culture
might be awakened as to make our youth practical arborists.
Very little time would be required for those talks which would
be sure to inspire an interest in arboriculture and in the
broader subject of rural art and adornment. In this way our
Public Schools may prove a partial substitute for the schools of
Forestry in Germany and other European countries, which
have exerted there a remarkable influence in diffusing a general
interest in arboriculture among the people. They regard for-

OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 19

ests as their friends, and understand their climatic influence and
economic value in staying spring torrents, preventing summer
droughts as well as in supplying lumber and fuel. The Ger-
mans have a passion for nature, and love to frequent their
beautiful groves and gardens, for parks and woods abound in
and near their cities and towns. The rural and suburban
adornment, now the pride and glory of so many beautiful
towns in Germany, and the fruit of this revived love of arbori-
culture, is largely due to the influence and literature which
have emanated from her schools of Forestry. Hence a deep
and general interest has been awakened in trees and forests and
the wanton forest fires so common and destructive in America
are comparatively unknown in Germany. The forest incendiary
would be regarded as a common enemy, like the poisoner of an
aqueduct, recklessly destroying that which it is the interest of
all to preserve. Like their Forest Schools, our Public Schools
should create that healthful public sentiment which constitutes
the best possible protection of the woods.

In connection with the Sheffield Scientific School, which by
the act of the Legislature in 1863 became the College of Agri-
culture and the Mechanic Arts of Connecticut, the endow-
ment of one or two additional professorships would inaugurate
a Department of Forestry. This could be done the more
economically here, where’ the existing cabinets, laboratories
and philosophical apparatus might be utilized in forestral in-
struction. The endowment of such a department would
prove a great benefaction to the State and to the country,
opening new fields of investigation which would bear directly
on the ultimate resources and permanent prosperity of the
nation. The conclusions of foreign foresters, though con-
firmed by the broadest observations and experience in Europe,
cannot all be wisely adopted in American Sylviculture. Dif-
ferences in soil, climate and other conditions, may affect trees
in regard to rapidity of growth, health, durability of timber,
texture, elasticity and grain of the wood and many other qual-
ities. These vital questions can be determined only by careful
investigations carried on in each country.

The Lombardy poplar, for example, was planted extensively
in New England many years ago. Brought to England from

20 OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE.

the banks of the Po in 1758, the facility of its propagation from
cuttings, its rapid growth, its tall columnar outline in contrast
with the spreading oaks and elms, soon made it a favorite in
England, hence with the fathers of New England. Sending
out its almost upright branches all along its tall stem, it was
much admired here, as it is still by the Italians and was of old
by the Romans, who called it the arbor populi. But in New
England so many of its branches winter-killed that it soon
became an unsightly collection of dead limbs, and it is now
seldom seen. This is one of many illustrations of the necessity
of adaptation to soil and climate, and of the fact that some
trees which thrive in one locality will fail in another.

More than those of other workmen, the farmer’s business
binds him to his home. He lives on or near the soil he tills.
Hence the farmer’s home must often be somewhat isolated.
To promote sociality and content, Col. Waring proposes that
farmers should concentrate in villages, and for this purpose
submit to the necessity of long daily journeys to their farms.
This is unfortunately the European usage. There the cottages
of the peasants are often crowded together more closely than are
the homes in any well laid-out city, leaving scant room for out-
buildings, to say nothing of gardens. This custom grew out of
the necessities of a barbarous age as a protection from robbers,
or out of that feudal system under which the serfs were crowded
into huts under the castle walls of their lord or chief.

The very isolation of the American farmer is one source of
his conscious individuality, independence and strength, when
he is thus led to greater care and taste in adorning his home
and grounds and increasing the attractions of the fireside. It
has long been my ambition to improve the homes and home-
life of our farmers, and of all our industrial classes, and help
them realize that the highest privilege and central duty of life
is the creation of happy homes. The chief aim of the indus-
tries of life, whether agricultural, manufacturing or commer-
cial, and the great end for which government itself is worthy
to be maintained, is that men may live in happy homes. ‘ The
hope of America is the homes of America,” and the hope of
Connecticut is the homes of Connecticut. You improve the
schools by improving the homes as truly as you improve the

OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 21

homes by improving the schools. Modern civilization relates
especially to the homes and social life of the people, to their
health, comfort, thrift, their intellectual and moral advance-
ment. In earlier times and other lands, men were counted in
the aggregate. They were valued as they helped to swell the
revenues or retinues of kings and nobles. The government
was the unit, and each individual only added one to the roll of
serfs or soldiers. With us the individual is the unit, and the
government is of the people and for the people and by the
people. America may be brought to be the paradise of the’
laborer in the neatness, comforts, amenities and attractions of his
home. In no other way can the best interests of this nation
be more surely promoted than by the elevation and ennobling of
its home life, and no agency can contibute to this grand achieve-
ment so universally and effectually as our public schools.

[Since the foregoing was in type, I have received a paper
from M. H. Buckhan, President of the University of Ver-
mont, on the question, “ What kind of an education shall
we give those of our children who are going to be farmers,”
which is .so sound, practical and suggestive as to well merit
re-printing entire in this connection. My limits will permit
only the following condensed summary of its leading thoughts. |

I shall ask and answer the question as though it was a personal
concern of my own: ‘ What sort of an education shall I give
to a child of mine who is going to be a farmer?” So you will
get my best and sincerest thoughts on the subject. I will
suppose that I have a boy who is going to be a farmer, calling
him George, which is a good farmer’s name, inasmuch as the
word itself means farmer. The question then is, how shall I
educate George? Now, although I should very much like to
have one of my boys become a farmer, because I believe that a
farmer’s life may be as honorable, happy and useful as any life,
I have no means of knowing that George will actually be a
farmer. ‘ I have no right arbitrarily to choose my boys’ oceupa-
tions for them any more than I have to choose their wives for
them, The system of caste which requires that every boy
should follow his father’s occupation, is tyrannous and cruel.
But in this free age and land, one of the best opportunities a
young man has is the opportunity of freely choosing his own
calling among all those open to honorable ambition. A good

92 OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE.

deal is said against academies and colleges on the ground that
they “educate young men away from the farm.” I know a
man who says: “I want my boy to be a farmer. If I send him
off to school, he will get weaned from the farm and go into
some profession. I will give him just a good common school
education; that is all that a farmer needs. Then he will stay’
at home and be a farmer.” But one of the rights which God
gave that boy was the right to make the most of himself in any
sphere of life which he might freely choose. And yet the father,
who ought to be his best helper, robs him of that right, and
says, virtually, ‘I will fix it so that he will never have a chance
‘to choose any calling and will never know that the chance
was taken away from him.” Why, if all farmers’ sons were to
become farmers, what would become of the professions, and of
the world? Go through all the callings of life and pick out the
most capable men in them, the greatest lawyers, statesmen,
preachers, physicians, teachers, inventors, the men who are
doing the greatest service to mankind, and you will find that
the great mujority of them came from the farm. Young men
are constantly going from the farm to carry fresh vigor into
other vocations, and others are constantly coming back from
the professions to renew their exhausted vitality by restoring
their connection with old mother earth. It is a strange thing
to say, but I really think it needs to be said to the fathers—
though perhaps not to the mothers: ‘Don’t be jealous of
your boys: don’t grudge them a chance to rise; give them an
opportunity to be something besides farmers if they want to be.”
But George says he wants to be a farmer—just as Willie has
decided to be a lawyer, Tom a physician, and Jack a locomotive
engineer. George is only a boy. His notion of being a farmer
is only a little boy’s fancy. He may change his mind many
times before he becomes aman. The smallest possible reason
for fixing a man’s career is a boy’s whim—and any preference
of a boy of ten or twelve can be little more than a whim. But
cannot a wise parent or teacher discover a boy’s talents and
aptitudes and so reveal to him the career for which he is fitted
and persuade him to follow it? I answer, only in the case of
some very remarkable boy who, like Pascal or Mozart, early
shows the unmistakable call of Providence in very marked
talents. The ordinary boy’s capacities do not appear until edu-
cation has brought them out, and often not even then, not
until practical life has tested them. George may be a farmer,
but he may not be. For the present, then, it is very plain that
I must not educate him as though I knew he was going to be
a farmer, except so far as that education would be equally good
for any other calling. But fortunately the groundwork and rudi-
ments of all education are the same. I will, then, give him a

OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 23

good elementary education. Now that means a good deal.
Very few boys get a good elementary education.
Shall I send my boy to the public schools, where I cannot

have my way about his studies, or shall I if I am able, put him

in a private school where I can, to some extent, prescribe the
course he shall pursue? I will put George into the public
schools on account of the healthful stimulus which publicity
and free competition gives to the schools, but I will use m
utmost influence to make them as good as they can be made. I
will, so far as I am able, see to it that the buildings, the furni-
ture, the apparatus, and above all the teachers are the best that
my district, my village or town can be persuaded to provide. I
will tax myself and do my utmost to persuade my neighbors to
tax themselves enough to maintain the very best school we can
afford.

But George’s education does not depend on the school alone.

It is very important that he should form the habit of reading

good books. But I cannot afford to buy him all the books he
will need ; he must have access to a good library. I must there-
fore stir up my neighbors to start a village or town library. I
will take good sterling newspapers, both religious and secular.

Now, if I have done my duty and he has done his, at fifteen
years of age, the boy has got an education which is not to be
despised. If he makes the most of it hereafter, extending his
information by reading, using his opportunities to profit by

intercourse with superior men, above all putting thought and

plan into his business, and so being constantly educated by it,
he may become a man of fair intelligence, competent to do the
duties of a man in the humbler walks of life. If he have
unusual native power of mind, he may do much more than this.
Such a mind will often burst through the limits which beset
half-trained minds of ordinary capacity and find or make itself
a way to knowledge and power. These are the few cases which
mislead the popular judgment. Because here and there one,
rarely gifted, most rarely gifted with that indomitable perse-
verance which makes light of toils which would kill ordinary
men, rises to eminence without the direct help of academies
and colleges, it is inferred that ordinary men, of average talents,
with moderate education, may do the same. But George is an
ordinary boy. The question now is, shall he go on with his edu-
cation? shall he go for some years to the high school or academy ?
The result of much thought on that question is, he shall go, if
I can afford it. I will scrimp, if I must, somewhere else, not
here. I will get up an hour earlier or work an hour later at
night, if I must, so that George may have a good education.
Of course all farmers cannot be thoroughly educated men.
In the present state of things few can aspire to that luxury.

24 OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE.

So far as concerns the great mass of farmers’ sons my work is
mainly done in urging them up to a good elementary and _
English high school education. I should like to have George —
become a thoroughly educated man, farmer or no farmer, and
if a good deal of exertion and sacrifice on my part will make
that possible, he shall be. But most lives are subjected to _
limitations. If the way to that seems to be shut against —
him, he must make the most of the opportunities Providence —
gives him, and even so may enjoy a great many of the pleasures _
and gains which only the highly educated man enjoys in the ©
fullest measure. .

It is not necessary now to go on and discuss the question —
whether George shall go to college, because the principles al-
ready settled in my own mind will lead me to desire that he
should go, if cireumstances permit. I refuse to allow that the
probability of his being a farmer will make any difference in
the question. I can see no good reason why I should favor the
boy who is going to be a lawyer or a physician, over his brother __
who is going to be a farmer, by sending the one to college and
not the other. It would be just as unfair as to leave twice as
much of my property to the one as the other. The farmer
needs the education as much, and can make as good use of it,
as the lawyer. I admit that the probability of his actually be-
coming a farmer grows less the more education you give him,
and that simply because his education has given him the power
to gain more of the desirable things of life with less work in
some other way than by farming. But as the professions be- —
come more crowded, and competition grows fone and as Gene
farming becomes less an operation of mere manual labor, and
more one of skill and contrivance, more educated men will be
attracted to agriculture, and education will become more and _
more the road to success and enjoyment in this as in all other
pursuits.

My general principle is this, that before we come to the
special education which shall fit one to become a farmer, a pro-
fessional man, or whatever else, we will give him as extended
and liberal an education as the circumstances will admit; the
more, the better; the more thorough and scholarly, the better ;
the more varied, the better, provided each part be thorough ;
the more extended, the better, certainly up to the time of his
majority, or even a year or two beyond. How much education
it is in the power of a farmer to give to his boys, will depend
on how high a value he sets on education, and how ambitious
they are to get it. If from that small, stony New Hampshire
farm, Ezekiel and Daniel Webster could find their way to ,
college, the same faith and heroism in father and mother and
boys, could make the way to college possible—it is not neces-
sary that it be made easy—from almost any farm.

Pe Bh 9
ary +s ag
ies NEY § .
rape

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OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. 25

But has George done nothing but study all these years? Has
his life been all books, books, study, study, and nothing else ?
Not so, if I am a wise father. The number of hours in a day,
the number of days in a year, that can be profitably devoted to

pure mental activity, without exhaustion to the mind and a
strain upon the body, are fewer than we think them to be: sit
down and calculate them, and see how large a margin we have

- left for other occupations. And besides, an important part of
education has to do with matters that books and school teachers
have no concern with, the training of eye, ear, hand, muscles ;
the development of the body to strength and agility ; acquiring
knowledge of common things, and getting, little by little, com-
mon sense; in short, that education by work, and experience,
and responsibility, through which boys become vigorous, know-
ing, capable in practical affairs. Now in this part of education
farmers have a great advantage over most others in the man-
agement of their boys. There is always something at hand for
boys to do in the time not required for study. A farmer’s boy
learns to be industrious, handy, thrifty ; he gets a vast amount
of knowledge by dealing with stones, trees, horses, cattle, birds,
bees, grasses, grains, fruits, wind, weather, country stores, ped-
dlers; he has a thousand opportunites for getting varied
knowledge which the village boy lacks. He has work entrusted
to him, and gets independence and manliness through the sense
of responsibility.

Iam thoroughly convinced that every boy should be trained
to some kind of industry—I do not mean a mere amateur, half-
work, half-play kind of employment, but to some one of the
great, necessary, bread-winning industries of mankind. Good
health, good habits, right notions of life, can be secured to boys
so effectually in no other way. The notion which village boys
are getting, that going to school five hours a day, for five days
in the week, for nine months in the year, exempts them from
work forall the rest of the time, breeds habits of idleness and self-
indulgence, which result in wasted and vicious lives. How to
give to village boys the employment which they need, is a hard
problem, which is now occupying the attention of thoughtful
men. But fortunately for you, it is not your problem. The
chances are all in your favor that your boy will learn industry,
economy, the value of time, and most of the essential, if homely,
virtues, through the experiences of life on the farm.

But sooner or later George must make his choice of a calling,
and we will assume that he chooses to be a farmer. He has
good reasons for his choice, and he chooses for those reasons,
and not from necessity or whim. Because farming is an active,
out-door, healthful employment ; because it is an honorable and
useful calling; because it insures a competency and holds out

26 OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE,

the prospect of a moderate and comfortable degree of wealth;
and because it gives opportunity for the exercise of all the |
virtues, the cultivation of all the pe and the enjoyment of —
all the substantial comforts of lite—he deliberately makes up —
his mind to be a farmer. He has already done much in the
way of preparation for his life work. He has got considerable
training of muscles, of sense, of mind. And now, just asa
well-educated young man turns his attention to the law, orto-
medicine, or divinity, he applies himself to the study of agri-
culture. He is not intending to be a gentleman farmer, but is
going into the business for the purpose of making a living.
What, then, shall his special education for farming be 4
Agriculture though not a science, but an art, is surrounded
by sciences which throw light upon it. And if we might call
an art liberal in proportion to its affiliation to science, then agri-
culture is the most liberal of all the arts, for it is allied to more
sciences than any other. Step out upon your landand pick up
a handful of soil, and before you can answer all the questions
which that soil puts to you, you must know something of Min-
eralogy, and Organic and Inorganic Chemistry. Stoop down be
and detach a single blade of grass with its roots, and you have in F
your hand all the essential data of the problem which that most =
interesting and wonderful science of Botany is called tosolve.
Crawling about under your feet, humming around your ears,
infesting the plant you have in your hand, disputing with you
the possession of the air you are about to take into your lungs,
are living creatures whose structure, habits and relations to
other organic life form the science of Entomology, which is
only one department of the vast science of Zoology, which
treats of all animate beings on the earth and in the air and in
the sea. Every plant that grows on your farm, every animal
in the stack-yard, every bird and insect that hovers in the air,
every implement of husbandry, every road, fence, drain, farm-
building, every running stream, swamp, muck-bed, forest, ike
change of temperature, rain storm, drought, every bare roe
upheaved to the sun—everything, in short, that the farmer’s eye
rests upon or his ear hears as he looks and listens by day or by
night, represents to him a science which lies very close to his
work and which it is his interest to know. Indeed, it would
be difficult to name a science in all the cirele of them, which
does not bear, immediately or remotely, on agriculture. George
has learned something of these sciences in his general training,
but he pursues them now not for the purposes of training but
for knowledge. He has learned the fundamental principles of
Chemistry, Botany and Physiology; he should now pursue
them into those details which touch the operations of farming.
He studies Chemistry as related to soils and the food of plants ;

/

OUR SCHOOLS AND AGRICULTURE. ~ Q7

Botany as related to seeds, growth, propagation, hybridizing,
grafting, irrigating, pruning; Physiology as related to the
care and feeding of animals, breeding, fattening. His studies
must now be real, connected with actual things, not mere
pictures and illustrations of things.

But where shall George learn the practical part of farming ?
Certainly not from books or lectures or from any instructions
of men themselves inexperienced, but on the farm, in the
actual operations of bona fide farming. Experimental farming,
amateur farming, fancy farming are all instructive, and I should
wish to have George keep a shrewd eye on all innovations and

_ be ready to learn the lesson which they have to teach. But
‘the kind of farming from which a boy learns most is farming
ursued as a business, and for the purpose of making a living.
When George has finished his scientific studies, or while he is
pursuing them if it can be arranged that he can study winters
and work summers, I should like to put him to work on some
well managed farm, where he will see and share in all the ope-
rations of a diversified agriculture. This is the practice pur-
sued in some parts of the world where agriculture reaches its
highest perfection, in the south of Scotland, for instance.
There the lads who are going to be head farmers or stewards
are first thoroughly educated in the schools and are then sent
to spend a few years with a “scientific farmer,” as he is there
called; that is, a practical farmer who understands all branches
of the business and has in operation on his farm, usually a large
one, all the most approved methods. There he serves a sort of
apprenticeship, giving his labor for the instruction he receives.
Possibly some modification of this plan will be found to work
with the farms attached tothe agricultural colleges, so that they
can be at once models ‘for instruction and remunerative, or, at
least, self-paying, as farms. But farming can be learned no
where but on a farm. A learner must for a time be an appren-
tice, either to some one else or to himself. However wise he
may be in the theory and principles of agriculture, he will be a
bungler and a loser till he gain skill by experience.

I know too well what answer many will make to all this:
“The education you describe is something very fine, but it
would turn our children into gentlemen and ladies, whom we
might have the privilege of waiting on. Education weans
boys from the love of work, and our boys must work, as we
did. Your scheme is not practical. It may do for the sons of
a few rich farmers, but the majority of boys are better off with
a good common edueation and plenty of work.” Are the far-
mers of Vermont, then, a peasant class, to whom education is
to be denied, and denied by themselves, lest it lift them out of
the station in which it has pleased Providence to place them ?

28 SHADE TREES ALONG THE HIGHWAYS.

Is education ee too good for them, something fit fou
their betters, but not

favored children is any too good for Vermonters, or for farmers ?

If education will make gentlemen and ladies of our children—

and education and religion certainly will—there is no place

where true gentlemen and ladies have a better right to live and —

reign and multiply their kind than on the farms and in the homes
of Vermont. And if there is any good thing in life which we
failed to get for ourselves because we came too early in the
course of human progress, let us do all we can to secure it for
our sons and daughters. There was one in history who thought
it more glory to be a king-maker than a king. Let the farmer
who is uneducated himself, and has felt his deficiences, get his
compensation in giving superior advantages to his children.

SHADE TREES ALONG THE HIGHWAYS.

The following law to encourage the planting of trees on the
public roads has just been enacted :-

Section 1. Every person planting, protecting and cultivating forest trees for
three years, one quarter mile or more, along any public highway, shall be entitled
to receive for ten years thereafter, an annual bounty of one dollar for each quarter
mile, so planted and cultivated, to be paid out of the state treasury: but such
bounty shall not be paid any longer than such line of trees is maintained.

Sec. 2. The forest trees named in Sec. 1st shall include the elm, maple, tulip,

ash, basswood, oak, black walnut and hickory.
Sec. 3. Elms not to be more than sixty feet apart, and the others not more

than thirty feet apart.

Sro. 4. This act shall take effect from its passage.

Nothing can add so much to the beauty and attractiveness
of our country roads as long avenues of fine trees. One sees
this illustrated in many countries in Europe, where for hun-
dreds of miles on a stretch the road is lined with trees. With
the liberal encouragement offered by this new law, no time
should be lost in securing the same grand attraction to the
highways of Connecticut. Growing on land otherwise running
to waste, such trees would yield most satisfactory returns. The
shade and beauty would be grateful to every traveler, but
doubly so to the owner and planter, as the happy experience
of hundreds of our farmers can now testify, for a ground work
in this direction is already well started. Having in abundance
the best trees for the roadside, no class can contribute so much
to the adornment of our public roads as the farmers. In
portions of Germany, the law formerly required every land-
holder to plant trees along his road frontage. Happy would
it be for us if the sovereigns of our soil would each make such
a law for himself. :

or them? Ihave not read aright the
history of Vermont if any such spirit as this is native to the
soil. I believe that nothing God has to bestow on his most —

RURAL IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION. 29

CONSTITUTION OF A RURAL IMPROVEMENT
ASSOCIATION.

As plans for Rural Improvement are often called for and as
our farmers have been specially active in this good work, the
following regulations and by-laws for such an association are
here given. The conditions of membership may properly vary
with the wealth and liberality of each community. Some associ-
‘ations fix the terms of membership at one, two, three and even
five dollars annwally, while others make them low enough to
invite the codperation of all classes.

1. This Association shall be called “THe Rurau ImpRove-
MENT ASSOCIATION OF ey

2. The object of this Association shall be to cultivate public
spirit, promote good fellowship, quicken the intellectual life of
the people, secure public health by better sanitary conditions
in our homes and surroundings, improve our streets, roads, road-
sides, side-walks, public pounds, protect natural scenery, re-
move nuisances, provide drinking troughs, break out paths
through the snow, and in general to build up and beautify the
whole town, and so enhance the value of its property and render
it a still more inviting place of residence.

3. The officers of this Association shall consist of a President,
a Vice-President, a Treasurer, a Secretary, and an Executive
- Committee of fifteen, six of whom shall be ladies.

4. It shall be the duty of the Executive Committee to make
all contracts, employ all laborers, expend all money, and super-
intend all improvements made by the Association. They shall
hold meetings monthly from April to October in each year,
and as much oftener as they may deem expedient.

5. Every person who shall plant three trees by the read-side,
under the direction of the Executive Committee, or pay three
dollars in one year or one dollar annually, and obligate himself

or herself to pay the same annually for three years, shall be a
member of this Association.

30 RURAL IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION.

6. The payment of ten dollars annually for three years, or of
- twenty-five dollars in one sum shall constitute one a life mem-
ber of this Association. ;

7. Five members of the Executive Committee present at any
meeting shall constitute a quorum.

8. No debt shall be contracted by the Executive Committee
beyond the amount of available means within their control, and
no member of the Association shall be liable for any debt of the
Association, beyond the amount of his or her subscription.

9. The Executive Committee shall call an annual meeting,
giving due notice of the same, for the election of officers of
this Association, and at said meeting shall make a detailed
report of all moneys received and expended during the year,
the number of trees planted under their direction, and the
number planted by individuals, length of sidewalks made or
repaired, and the doings of the Committee in general.

10. This Constitution may be amended at any annual meeting
by a two-thirds vote of the members present and voting.

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