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til their loss®* or grains run away up
into the millions, and that’s a lauda
ble business. These Wall Street '
Stock Gamblers can experience re
verses, they can sustain losses, they
can gamble to such extremes as
makes continents tremble, and then,
start a little flurry of a panic, and
the vaults of the United States treas
ury are opened up, and they are told
to help themselves to as many mil
lions of dollars of the people’s mon
ey as they want without interest, to
tide them over their reverses.
But, the farmers are the bone and
sinew of the land and it is upon their
labors that all prosperity is erected.
The drouth may consume their crops,
the floods may wash them away, the
storms may destroy them, the cater
pillers and boll weevils may devour
them, but the government vaults re
main locked and barred and not one
cent can they get of their own mon
ey, no, not even at a high rate of
interest. They can go to the old
Nick, nobody cares for their disas
ters!
My countrymen, there is a remedy!
The remedy will be applied.
It will not be very long.
Wait with patience.
The sun will shine some day.—
Jasper News.
TEACHING FARMING.
Nobody has yet tried to make a
catalogue or a classification of all
the multitude of subjects on which
President Roosevelt has ideas. This
work will remain for some patient
man in the years to come. Very p * b
ably it will take two men and possi
bly their children.
From talking on the forms of Cel
tic verse to the best methods of keep
ing an open range in Wyoming is an
easy change for Theodore Roosevelt.
He has a magnetic energy for pick : v<*
up bits of copper, iron, steel, tin,
brass, and other metals subject to
electric influence and then reversing
the current and throwing them out to
the four winds of heaven.
Occasionally he throws out some
good thing that is pure metal. Such
a bit was a paragraph in his speech
at Keokuk, la., the other day. He
said:
“We should strive in every way
to aid in the education of the farmer
for the farm, and should shape our
school system with this end in view;
and so vitally important is this that,
in my opinion, the federal government
should co-operate with the state gov
ernments to secure the needed change
and improvement in our schools. It
is significant that both from Minne
sota and Georgia there have come
proposals in this direction in the ap
pearance „cf bills introduced in the
national congress. At present there
is a gap between our primary schools
in county and city and the industrial
collegiate courses, and, if necessary,
the nation must help the state to
close it. Our greatest national asset
is to be found in the children. Thev
need to be trained to high ideals of
everyday living, and to high efficien
cy in their respective vocations; we
cannot afford to have them trained
otherwise, and the nation should help
the state to achieve this end.’*
Os course there is an outcropping
of that cld idea of federal supervi
rion in the suggestion that the na
tional government should aid the
WATSON'S WEEKLY JEFFERSONIAN.
states. That is Roosevelt through
and through.
But is it such a bad ideal
Would it be an unfortunate thing
for the future generation of farmers
to have such men as Secretary Wil
son, Gifford Pinchot of the forestry
department, or Coburn of Kansas,
not a federal employe, bul a worker
for Kansas and all the United States
have a personal oversight and inter
est in what is being taught in the pub
lic schools! Suppose the Bureau of
Animal Industry supervised a primer
on dairying and raising beef cattle
for use in the public schools!
It might help some. The great
thing about the President’s sugges
tion is the importance of educating
the fanner for the farm. If the
states do it alone, well and good. But
the farmers pay the bulk of the tax
es which support the government and
why shouldn’t they get some of the
benefits!
It would be better than subsidizing
the shipping trust, or aiding the steel
trust by a protective tariff, anyway.
BACK TO THE FARM.
Much consideration has been devot
ed to the best method of keeping the
boys on the farm. It is an admitted
fact that a large percentage of the
best and most intelligent sons of
farmers have left the farm and sought
the city to engage in other occupa
tions. As the years go by, these
numbers increase till it has become
alarming.
We have given this question much
thought and we have concluded that
the only way to keep the boys on
the farm is to educate them to have
a special interest in and respect for
the farm. Much of the present day
country school education tends to ed
ucate the farmers’ sons and daught
ers from the farm, when it should
educate them back to the farm. The
city schools, made up of the sons and
daughters of the bankers, merchants,
doctors and lawyers, educate the pu
pils to especially qualify them so
they can take up the work as bank
ers, merchants, doctors and lawvers.
The education given the country boys
and girls also fits them so they can
take up these same lines of business
or professions, but it does not espe
cially qusbfy them so they will be
willing and anxious to take up the
business of farming. ,
Director Burkett of the Kansas
station hits the nail squarely on the
head when he says: “Through prop
erly conducted agricultural high
schools, more than by any other
means, can the tendency of our boys
to go to the city and our girls from
the home, be stayed. No other schools
can or have it in their power to edu
cate back to the land and the home,
and not away from it. This is par
ticularly true of their power over
farm and village boys who attend
them, and over the girls, whether city
or country, who there learn, perhaps
for the first time, that homemaking
is something not to be ashamed of,
but to be proud of, something of the
real value of foods and balanced ra
tions, for both man and beast, how
to know them and how to make them;
the importance of intelligent eare of
both body and home, plain nursing,
plain cooking, and plain living. This
work, all to© often neglected, too of
ten shunned and ashamed es, ea*
through these agricultural schools be
lifted to the high level where it be
longs.”—Farmers’ Advocate.
LEARNING A TRADE.
The value of learning a trade be
comes more and more apparent every
day. Scarcely a week passes hut
some man is asking us to print out
a field of labor for him. With good
attainments, perhaps, or an insatia
ble desire to be at work at something
whereby an honest penny may be
turned, he finds himself landed, as it
were, at the first ebb of the fid \
The slightest recession of the
deposits him on the shore among
weeds of idleness, and unwholesome
vapors becloud his mind. Then* is
scarcely a man in business but has
an experience like our own; his young
friends continually envying him the
privilege of working in a well-defined
field, and wishing that, like him, they
had something to strike at.
Those young men are generally af
flicted with the disease of ambition.
They want to be something more than
common and, mistaking often their
desires for the ability to satisfy them,
they flatter themselves that they are
fit for something better than the com
mon run of humanity. Their great
fault is in trying to achieve manhood
without serving an appr nticeship to
it, and they find themselves, when
they should be prepared for their life
work, wondering what it will b ’, and
fretting because it does not declare
itself, and in nine cases out of ten
waiting in vain for such a call, go
into politics, agencies, etc.
The great remedy for all this says
The Tennille Tribun’, is a trade thor
oughly learned. The time between
school and twenty-one should be spent
at the carpenter’s bench, in a machine
shop or at an anvil, so that when the
young man commences his battle with
life in any vocation he can, if worst
ed at his first attempt, turn to his
trade with confidence that his skilled
labor will at least procure him a liv
ing, and perhaps a competence.
A trade to a man is as a deposit in
the bank, which he may draw in time
of need, or a paid up insurance
against the sports of fortune. The
sons of the German Kaiser are each
taught some special trade, although
in human probability they will never
have occasion to work at it, but it is
following the custom which has been
in vogue in Germany for ages and
which is no doubt one of the causes
why Germans as a rule are sel-reliant
and steadv-going.
Under the gradually changing con
ditions the waxres of skilled workmen
are rising. In every city there are
skilled workingmen who earn more
money than many of the professional
men, and whose work is really lighter
and more conducive to health and
happiness. The establishment of trade
and technological schools is leading
many young men to learn various
trades, and their number should be
greatly increased.— Augusta Herald.
NEW THEME IN GEORGIA.
Over in the good old state of Geor
gia where the peach crop struggles an
nually with the spring frosts and ths
luscious watermelons peep tempting
ly at the passing colored man fr< m a
wealth of trailing vines they are get
ting up new question* of ’lifimnsriss
perhaps with a view of relieving the
dryness of the situation after new
year. The average Georgian delights
in discussions. At almost any cross
roads general merchandise store in
the Cracker state the fates of the na
tions are settled from the top of a
molasses barrel or a soap box. The
woods of Georgia are full of men
who are too busy elucidating the po
litical or economical situation to split
kindling for the kitchen stove, and
the women of the rural regions have
fully developed their biceps accord
ingly.
Politics is not especially eruptive
in Georgia at this time, so many of
those who thrive on controversies
having sought other themes. One of
them which bids fair to develop a
variety of views has arisen in the
shape of a contention between the
doctors and the druggists. The doc
tors appear to think the druggists are
not so good as they should be, while
the druggists claim that if the whole
story were told some new lights and
shadows would appear round about
the doctors.
Without being in a position to
speak authoritatively on either side,
and with no purpose to reflect in any
way, we suspect that the patients
could find something to say if they
were called upon to freely express
their views. Whether the doctors or
the druggists have saved more lives
is a question that will probably never
be satisfactorily settled. Indeed,
there be some, perhaps disciples of
the pessimistic school, who seriouslv
question whether a sick man has as
much show in the care of the doctors
and druggists as if left in the hands
of nature, though even these usually
send for doctors and swallow their
physic when they reach the despera
tion stage of the game.
It was the late Bill Nye, we believe,
who said that when he recovered from
an attack of fever which was grap
pled with by three doctors he had sev
en dollars left but no constitution.
And yet both the doctors and the
druggists are looked upon by the
great majority of real or imaginary
sick folks as friends in need. A large
part of their success depends upon
whether or not their patients have
faith in their knowledge and skill,
and this will no doubt enter into tho
discussion in Georgia as a more or
less effective argument.
Meantime both the doctors and the
druggists in good old Georgia will
continue to prescribe for anybodj
who has the price, and will exhaust
all the known remedies in their re
spective lines for the future except
that which is often prescribed for
snakebites.—Birmingham Herald.
The Columbus (Ohio) common
council is considering ways and
means of preventing people from
committing suicide in that city. Why
not furnish them with the means to
get out of town?
From Redlands, Cal., comes the
story of a trout wearing a watch and
chain that fell from an angler’s
pocket and became entangled in the
fish s gills. If this sort of thing con
tinues, the President may have to
appoint an able man to th© position
of assistant squelcher of nature fa
kir©.
PAGE SEVEN