Chapters in Rural ProgressButterfield, Kenyon L. (Kenyon Leech)
Science
Chapters in Rural Progress
Butterfield, Kenyon L. (Kenyon Leech)
Agriculture -- United States
In the teaching of students, the agricultural college will continue the
important work of training men for agricultural research, agricultural
teaching, and expert supervision of various agricultural enterprises.
But the college should put renewed emphasis upon its ability to send
well-trained men to the farms, there to live their lives, there to find
their careers, and there to lead in the movements for rural progress. A
decade ago it was not easy to find colleges which believed that this
could be done, and some agricultural educators have even disavowed such
a purpose as a proper object of the colleges. But the strongest
agricultural colleges today have pride in just such a purpose. And why
not? We not only need men thus trained as leaders in every rural
community, but, if the farming business cannot be made to offer a career
to a reasonable number of college-trained men, it is a sure sign that
only by the most herculean efforts can the farmers maintain their status
as a class. If agriculture must be turned over wholly to the untrained
and to the half-trained, if it cannot satisfy the ambition of strong,
well-educated men and women, its future, from the social point of view,
is indeed gloomy.
The present-day course of study in the agricultural college does not,
however, fully meet this demand for rural leadership. The farm problem
has been regarded as a technical question, and a technical training has
been offered the student. The agricultural college, therefore, needs
"socializing." Agricultural economics and rural sociology should occupy
a large place in the curriculum. The men who go from the college to the
farm should appreciate the significance of the agricultural question,
and should be trained to organize their forces for genuine rural
progress. The college should, as far as possible, become the leader in
the whole movement for solving the farm problem.
The farm home has not come in for its share of attention in existing
schemes of agricultural education. The kitchen and the dining-room have
as much to gain from science as have the dairy and the orchard. The
inspiration of vocational knowledge must be the possession of her who is
the entrepreneur of the family, the home-maker. The agricultural
colleges through their departments of domestic science--better, of
"home-making"--should inaugurate a comprehensive movement for carrying
to the farm home a larger measure of the advantages which modern science
is showering upon humanity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account