leaves school, the child finds that he is just getting ready to acquire an education-just getting ready to learn somewhat of things. Many of our teachers do, indeed, endeavor to follow the divine precept; the conscientious portion of them do try to "train up a child in the way he should go," forgetting, however, to apply it from a Socratian stand-point, equally important, "To teach a child in youth that which he is to follow in age." From the common schools, some

of the pupils go to college. Here again there is the same groove, "the classics" dominating all else. Whatever the life-work of the student is to be, a certain routine must apply to all; and after spending years of mental trial, the young man or woman finds, at last, that the real education that is to fit him or her to battle with life must now commence through self-culture.

HOW SHALL WE BEGIN?

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HOW SHALL WE BEGIN?

Begin from the start, by instructing the pupil WHY this thing or that proposition is so; why addition, multiplication, and division, are all there really is of arithmetic; why the rivers, constantly flowing into the sea, never increase its volume; why chemistry is the corner-stone of agriculture, and mathematics the foundation upon which mechanics rest. The fact is, the so-called higher education is an artificial affair, contrived originally for a class—the learned professions. Hence, the vast army of toiling workers who, to-day, are hungering for that certain knowledge that would enable them, through the exercise of mind upon matter, to properly lay hold of that Archimedian lever-an intelligent and diversified industry.

One of the first things for the masses to understand is that education is not incompatible with labor; on the contrary, indeed, that the better educated a man is the more intelligently he can perform the ordinary duties of life. There is a right and a wrong way to do every thing, from hod-carrying to the most intricate sculpture; from plowing the furrows that are to receive the seed to building the stack or rick of grain that shall turn rain, resist the wind, and keep its contents intact.

How many artisans, through education to their art, can claim to be really master-workmen, and able to command the highest wages of the craft? Scarcely one in a hundred.

FARMERS AS CRAFTSMEN.

How many farmers are really excellent plowmen, understanding the niceties of turning sod, stubble, or fallow, and the proper management of the furrow-slices, through the

various gradations of sand and loams to stiff clay? How many farmers can build a stack of hay or grain so that it shall preserve its proper shape in settling, and in its contour present the greatest resistance to the influence of the weather? Not one in fifty even of managing farmers properly know what good plowing really is in its various details. Not one in a hundred can build a series of stacks, either of hay or grain, similar in size and shape, and superior in their structure. Why is this so? The answer is simple. They have never been taught why furrows laid at different angles exert different influences; why the mold-board and share of one plow is made different from another; why, in building a stack, the proportions should be after exact rules, the whole bearing definite relations to the quantity of material to be used, etc.

These are among the most common processes of the farm, and yet but little of their philosophy, so to speak, is known by the majority of farmers. There are many others equally important and equally neglected. If the merchant, the manufacturer, or the tradesman manifested the same indifference in their several industries, they would all, sooner or later, be involved in a common bankruptcy. That farmers are not is due to the fact that nature is constantly working for them, even while they are sleeping, and that drafts on her storehouse are always honored to the full extent of her ability.

EXPERIENCE A THOROUGH TEACHER.

Of the details of mechanics I know but little, except as to the repairs of farm machinery in a rough way. An experience in working the soil for a third of a century, during which time I have constantly educated myself to the various

EXPERIENCE A THOROUGH TEACHER.

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details of agriculture, by reading and experiment, has shown me that the farmer never ceases to learn while life lasts. The trouble is that many do not begin to educate themselves until many important years of their working life are past.

Experience, that thorough but costly teacher, eventually shows them how little they really know, and how much they have yet to learn. The theorizing of gentlemen ruralists and mere scholars has disgusted them with book-farming.

Availing themselves at length of such works as they can find, containing the practical labors of adepts in the art, they discover most important unexplored fields before them, almost appalling in their extent, except to the mind trained to study. Carefully considering the details of the art, they finally decide upon the specialty which they will follow, and thenceforward they devote themselves chiefly to stockbreeding or stock-feeding; the cultivation of the cereals, or of hay; orcharding; the raising of vegetables or of seeds; floriculture, or the like,-according as their position and location will warrant, and their previous education will allow. It takes years and successive and grave mistakes before the knowledge is gained which will enable them economically to blend these specialtes with the succession and relation of crops necessary to keep up the fertility of their farms. A few are successful, and leave their farms better than they found them, but vastly more exhaust their soil and their energies in a perpetual struggle for the necessities of life.

To obviate this difficulty, and lead the coming generation to a proper education of their faculties, education to the industries was proposed and agitated, upon the basis of endowment, by national aid, of industrial schools for the better training of youth to these pursuits.