Educational Foundations 1909

(The Canadian Equivalent would be Robertson's School Garden Movement. Even today in 2006, some people advocate having school gardens. I have this beautiful book, with a forward by Margaret Atwood, about such gardens in Toronto schools; but happily the ideology behind the movement has evolved.)

"The problem now," say many a sociological writer, "is to induce the boys to remain on the farm and not crowd into the cities."

"No such thing," says Professor Horchem, of Duguque. "The boys have already left the farm and crowded into the cities. The problem now is to get them to go back to the country, where life is worth living.

The best farms that every lay outdoors are rented to foreigners ignorant of conditions and yield but a pittance. Their owners are in the cities, trying to live as their neighbours live, and achieve something in business and social life, with little of real satisfaction to themselves or others. Can they be won back to the country by direct appeal?  No, farm life is associated in their minds with hard labour, unrelieved by the amenities of society, unenlightened by science and education.

The key to the ultimate solution of every problem is the children. Social problems are solved slowly.  If you cannot reach the present generation with any particular matter of reform, make sure the of the next and you will ultimately win.

Let the boys of today who are crowded into the cities learn something of the free independent life of the farmer; let them learn enough of science to see the unfolding of nature's wonderful laws in every leaf and twig and flower; let them have no false (sic) notion of social rank and preferment; teach them the dignity of labour, the last results of science, the rule of health and happiness - and the problem has solved.

To the true scholar there is no loneliness in he country. The highest, best thought of the world is there, if one will have him books and friends. Labour there is, but labour is life and health when intelligently expended. Professor Horchem's theory of park life is to gather together boys from the cities, in the vacation months, for country life. They work in the garden and raise vegetables which command market price. They have pure food, with the 'Spartan sauce of hunger'. While they rest in the shade, they learn lessons from educators who talk to them about science.

The charms of country life are realized in fact and they are divorced from the dreariness of he country life of a generation past.