Education Foundations April 1909
Editorial

Modern Editor's  note: Roosevelt's ideas mirrored EXACTLY the ideas of  Canada's School Garden and Rural Education Movement. See Macdonald College link and also Royal Commission on Industrial Training and Technical Education Link.

President Roosevelt's heart speaks earnestly and forcibly in his special message to Congress. "Farming," he writes "does not yield either the profit or the satisfaction that it ought to yield, and may be made to yield.  There is discontent in the country, and in places, discouragement.  Farmers as a class to not magnify their calling, and the movement to the town, tho I'm happy to say, less than formerly, is still strong." The President believes that farmers can and must help themselves  by 'better farming, better business, and better living on the farm.'

Better farming is made possible by the vast amount of practical information to be had for the asking regarding the most efficient methods of agriculture. Many states maintain good agriculture experiment stations and schools. What is lacking is the proper organization of a system of practical training of the boys and girls in the elementary schools for life on the farm.  We need teachers in the country schools, preferably married men, who are themselves scientifically trained farmers, and who love the country.

President Roosevelt puts it that a new kind of school is needed in the country, "which shall teach the children as much outdoors as indoors, and perhaps more, so that they will prepare for the country life and not, as at present, for town life." There is a need for textbooks especially adapted to rural conditions.  These country schools can be made the great regenerating stations of our national life.

One small contribution that the schools could well make is to teach business practices in a really practical sort of way. If half the absurdities were done away with, that are a present carried along under the pretense of arithmetic, there would be abundant time for developing business practice. Of course, this cannot be done with young girls of 16 or 18 in charge of schools.