OUR FARMER YOUTH AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

BY PROFESSOR WILLET M. HAYS.

(Of the University of Minnesota.)

The primary graded schools and the high schools of our cities and our State universities have been articulated and unified into a national system. In the newer States, which were settled after high schools and State universities became popular, this system occupies nearly the whole educational field. In the studies offered, in the location of the schools, and in the method of providing revenues this system suits the American people. The recent rapid development of city high schools, and especially the recent large financing of State universities by many States, and the falling off in number of new private and religious academies and small colleges, indicate that the State is more and more to be in charge of our educational institutions. No doubt parochial schools, small denominational colleges, and special schools will continue to have their large influence, because some of their functions the public institutions cannot perform. The largely endowed separate universities, as Chicago and Leland Stanford, will also carry an important part of the work of education.

THE AGE OF SPECIALIZATION.

A century ago, the whole framework of the education from primary to college classes looked to a finished education. The need then seemed to be an educated class. Now, our educated class has grown large, and has followed the law of the division of labor; it is divided into sub-classes of specialists, each demanding and securing special education. A new system is a necessity. The introduction of machinery and

LACONICS.

BEST THOUGHTS ABOUT MEDIOCRITY.

We meet with few utterly dull and stupid souls; the sublime and transcendent are still fewer; the generality of mankind stand between these two extremes; the interval is filled with multitudes of ordinary geniuses, but all very useful, and the ornaments and supports of the commonwealth.-Bruyere.

Minds of moderate calibre ordinarily condemn everything which is beyond their range.-Rochefoucauld.

Mediocrity is not allowed to poets, either by the gods or men.

Horace.

Mediocrity is now, as formerly, dangerous, commonly fatal, to the poet; but among even the successful writers of prose, those who rise sensibly above it are the very rarest exceptions.-Gladstone.

There are certain things in which mediocrity is not to be endured, such as poetry, music, painting, public speaking.-Bruyere.

Mediocrity is excellent to the eyes of mediocre people.-Joubert.

They are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing. It is no mean happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean. Superfluity comes soonest by white hairs, but competency lives longest.

The art of putting into play mediocre qualities often begets more reputation than is achieved by true merit.-Rochefoucauld.

Nothing in the world, is more haughty than a man of moderate capacity when once raised to power.-Wessenburg.

Persevering mediocrity is much more respectable than talented inconstancy.-J. Hamilton.

There is a mean in all things; even virtue itself has stated limits; which not being strictly observed, it ceases to be virtue.-Horace.

The highest order of mind is accused of folly as well as the lowest. Nothing is thoroughly approved but mediocrity. The majority has established this, and it fixes its fangs on whatever gets beyond it either way.-Pascal.

The virtue of the soul does not consist in flying high, but walking orderly; its grandeur does not exercise itself in grandeur, but in mediocrity.-Montaigne.

There are circumstances of peculiar difficulty and danger, where a mediocrity of talent is the most fatal quality that a man can possibly possess. Had Charles the First, and Louis the Sixteenth, been more wise or more weak, more firm or more yielding, in either case they had both of them saved their heads.-Colton.

OUR FARMER YOUTH AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. BY PROFESSOR WILLET M. HAYS.

(Of the University of Minnesota.)

The primary graded schools and the high schools of our cities and our State universities have been articulated and unified into a national system. In the newer States, which were settled after high schools and State universities became popular, this system occupies nearly the whole educational field. In the studies offered, in the location of the schools, and in the method of providing revenues this system suits the American people. The recent rapid development of city high schools, and especially the recent large financing of State universities by many States, and the falling off in number of new private and religious academies and small colleges, indicate that the State is more and more to be in charge of our educational institutions. No doubt parochial schools, small denominational colleges, and special schools will continue to have their large influence, because some of their functions the public institutions cannot perform. The largely endowed separate universities, as Chicago and Leland Stanford, will also carry an important part of the work of education.

THE AGE OF SPECIALIZATION.

A century ago, the whole framework of the education from primary to college classes looked to a finished education. The need then seemed to be an educated class. Now, our educated class has grown large, and has followed the law of the division of labor; it is divided into sub-classes of specialists, each demanding and securing special education. A new system is a necessity. The introduction of machinery and

cheapened transportation have carried the division of labor to all classes of people. Special as well as general education is now demanded by the people, because they have discovered the advantages peculiar to each.

The old system of schools said, "Educate the man first and the specialist afterwards." This practically means that special education be confined to higher education. It too nearly means aristocracy of special education, and too nearly ignores the 99 per cent. who cannot take a college course before pursuing a course in a speciality. The old-time apprentice system, instead of keeping pace with the greater needs for special training among the industrial classes, has retrograded. And the result is that our system of education needs readjusting at the bottom and middle, so as to better serve those who drop out during the primary and high school courses, or upon graduation from the high school, and enter at once upon work which usually proves to be a speciality more or less definite in its nature.

THE MOVEMENT CITYWARD AIDED BY OUR SCHOOLS.

In the old system, where the texts, the teachers, and the ideals were all centered in some city profession, and the road to fame was laid out through the complete course of a collegiate education, the boy or girl who was to be a farmer had no special place. The assumption was that what was good preparation for entrance into the freshman class in college was equally good for the boy who was to be a farmer, or the girl who was to manage a farm home. The result has been that next to the more rapid increase in the demand for city workers as compared with the country demand, our schools have been the most potent influence in leading our people from the farm to the city. Our scheme of education has taught of city things rather than of country things, and by ignoring the farm and the farm home, our greatest industry, farming, and our best institution, the farm home, have been discredited.

THE FARM HOME VERSUS THE LANDED ESTATE.

To perpetuate our unrivaled system of medium-sized farms, as compared with very small farms inhabited by mere peasants, or with very large farms owned by the wealthy and worked by hired servants, our government could well afford to continue making vast expenditures. Heretofore, its expenditures for this purpose have been in the form of free lands under the homestead laws. Henceforth they must be in the form of special education for the common farmer. Unforeseen financial changes might turn capital to purchasing estates," and other economic changes might tend to greatly increase the percentage of Uncle Sam's acres owned by "landlords." Reducing the proportion of that class who manage and "work" lands which they own lowers the average standards of country wages and country living. The principal reason why the common farmers now hold the land is because, by uniting their capital, their labor, and their brains. with the making of a permanent family home, they can pay so much for land that the capitalist cannot afford to own it for leasing, or to "run" it at arm's-length without pauper labor. Remuneration in the form of independent homes for families is not secured by the absent landlord and by only a few inhabitants on the large estate conducted by the owners. Whenever other industries lag, capital seeks investment in landed estates, and once estates with expensive central buildings are developed, it is, indeed, very difficult to break them up into smaller holdings. European estates help to hold as peasants a large class of people who do not lack in ability, as shown by the rapidity with which they rise when placed on free soil in America.

Since the farmer and farm home-maker on the mediumsized farm must meet sharp competition, special education for the mass of farmers becomes a matter of grave economic and civic as well as of educational importance, a broad State and national problem. Our modest farm homes stand as our strongest political bulwark. Homes on farms worked by the owners are the best places to breed vigorous people