Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 104, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1917 — EDUCATE MORE FARMERS [ARTICLE]

EDUCATE MORE FARMERS

It is coining to be recognized as a most obvious .fact that if we people are to again put our country on kn equitable living basis we must educate mo-e farmers. Not educate more farmer boys for professions, hut educate more boys for farming. From the incipiency of the pub-j lie school up to within the last decade" the entire trend of education has been away from the farm and toward the professions. Even the manual training schools have tended to swell the ranks of the mechanical trades at the expense of the farms. No nation can achieve permanent prosperity without a great and prosperous farming class. When the farn\ decays the nation deteriorates. Our farms are the very life and heart of our country. Some, though, may ask how we are to educate more farmers. Very simple. Make every free school in the land primarily an agricultural school, and a literary school as a secondary matter. Belles letters is not the crowning necessity of existence. Bread and meat are. Educate the youth of the land first toward that which is most Vitally necessary to our national life, and when this is accomplished, if there be leisure and means for adding the frills, let s them be added.

Nine out of every ten high school pupils on emerging from school enter the ranks of the toilers, in some department or other. If in their education the farm has not only been made attractive to them, but they have been given a thorough and practical knowledge of its workings, then a large per cent of them will as a matter of course choose that as their occupation in life. ■ • _ When war broke out between the allies and the central powers the world stood amazed at the wo Titlerfuj perfection of the German military machine. But the cause behind it was as simple as A, B, C, Every German youth had been educated and trained as a soldier first of alb—after that for a, vocation. *

But it time war will cease. The arts of peace will again demand the attention and energies of the world, and among, them there is none to compare with the great art of coaxing from Mother Earth her golden harvests. But, you may ask, if all of the boys are educated to d farmer’s life, what of the professions? There will always he some who, by natural fitness, will gravitate to the professions, enough to keep their ranks recruited. As a matter of fact, these same professions could spare half of their present members and not suffer in the least. , , . _ Educate farmers! The farms are suffering for them, and the professions and trades are overburdened with them.