The Country-Life Movement in the United StatesBailey, L. H. (Liberty Hyde)
History
The Country-Life Movement in the United States
Bailey, L. H. (Liberty Hyde)
Country life
Aside from the foregoing particular institutions, many general colleges
and universities are introducing agricultural work in order to meet the
increasing demand and to keep up with educational progress.
Agricultural work is proceeding in nearly all the states under the
auspices of the United States Department of Agriculture, some of it
distinctly educational in character; and there is agitation for the
passage of a national bill to further secondary or special
agriculture-education in the states.
State departments of agriculture, the indispensable experiment stations,
veterinary colleges, departments of public instruction, farmers'
institutes, voluntary societies, are all attacking the country-life
problem in their own ways; and the powerful work of the agricultural
press, although not coming within the scope of this paper, should not be
overlooked as an educational agency.
In the meantime, the colleges of agriculture are growing rapidly and are
approaching the subject from every side, and are assuming natural and
inevitable leadership.
_The need of plans to coördinate this educational work._
There is no doubt that all these agencies are contributing greatly to
the solution of the rural problem, and there is now probably very little
inharmony and little duplication of effort. In the newness and
enthusiasm of the effort, good fellowship holds the work together in all
the states or at least keeps it from collision. But the situation is
inherently weak, because there is no plan or system, and no united
discussion of the grounds on which the work rests. I have been in
correspondence on this question with public men in every state in the
Union, and I find a general feeling that the present situation is
fraught with danger, and that there is great need of organization or at
least of federation of the forces within each state; and ultimately
there must be federation on a national basis. The work should be
coöperative rather than competitive.
What is to be the policy of the state in agriculture-education? Where is
the headship to lie? What are to be the spheres of the different
institutions and agencies? What board or agency is to correlate and
unify all the parts, to insure a progressive and well-proportioned
program?
_Outline of a state plan._
A general law should define the state's policy in education by means of
agriculture and in the development of rural affairs, and outline methods
that it proposes to follow, so that the work may be coördinated
throughout the state and that a definite plan may be projected. The
duties of all the classes of institutions should be defined and
relations should be established between them. The people should know to
what they are committing themselves.
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