Personally, I do not favor a uniformity of text-books for Ohio schools, but I think another campaign of school-book adoption like the one we have just survived will bring the opening of the Pandora's box of uniformity. Rightly or wrongly, the people are suspicious that these changes were brought about by indirection, to use a very mild term.

But entirely aside from the prejudice aroused by the wholesale changes in books during the summer last past, I do not think there is any serious public demand for uniformity. I cannot see any sound basis for reasoning for uniformity and therefore seem to be doing a work of supererogation in giving any reasons why there should be

none.

I do not favor state uniformity because the conditions of school privileges are not uniform. Every school studies the traditional three R's, but there is a vast difference between texts used and discussions made possible through the differing conditions of school attendance and equipment. What is possible to accomplish in a city with well-paid teachers, expert supervision and superb appliances, is entirely out of the question in the remote districts where it is still true that the legal eight months schooling cannot be provided the children because of the poverty of the taxpayers.

I do not favor uniformity of textbooks for the state because there is no uniformity of local conditions as

regards population. We talk sometimes about the homogeneity of our people, but when we do, we take counsel of our ignorance. The character of text-books adapted to a prosperous manufacturing center is not of the sort that would be most serviceable to a purely rural community or to a fine county-seat, dependent upon it.

I do not favor uniform text-books because I believe such action would lower our already too low educational ideals. We have a law on our statute books, making it the duty of the State Commissioner of Common Schools, to classify high schools and both the present incumbent of this high office and his immediate predecessor during whose term the law was enacted, have done yeoman service to make the law effective, but so far they have made only what our French friends call succès d'estime. They have been called upon to make bricks without straw, and their failure to do so is not chargeable to the workman, but to his defective tools. It is an absurdity to talk of classifying schools without the aid of competent, fearless inspectors. Any man can put upon paper, a course of study, and by dint of much industry may gather together a "library" of congressional reports or long obsolete books of a general character; by straining a point, too, he may certify to the possession of a "laboratory," a multum-in-parvo cabinet perhaps, and what is to prevent the calling of the high-school over which he presides First Class? Nothing but a

decent regard for the truth. Uniform text-books prescribed in a paper course of study would remove a very effective barrier to the clean-cut discrimination now made by at least one Ohio college which does inspect.

I do not favor uniformity of textbooks for the same reasons that I do not favor uniformity of wives and sweethearts. Tastes differ. I know competent teachers who cannot abide a certain Latin Grammar, but who get no better results from the book of their choice than some one who dotes on the self-same book they hate. I have seen some pretty fair teachers who knew how to handle the particular arithmetic text which usage had made them familiar with,

who were at sea in another and perhaps a better one.

Until we can have more nearly uniform conditions as to length of school year, material equipment, homogeneity in population, consonance in ideals of honesty, pedagogy and tastes, in texts as well as skill in teaching them, I believe we will do well to let well enough alone, and yet I am no "stand-patter."

I have given here five reasons which I think are "sound" upon this question; there are others, but I prefer not to tell all that I know, for the reason given in the Arab maxim: "Tell not all that thou knowest, for thou wilt then be sure to tell something that thou dost not know.”

Why do we not educate doctors, lawyers, dentists, teachers and preachers in the same way that we do farmers?

Here is a young man who is going to be a doctor. Let us send him to a public school and teach him to read, write and make simple mathematical calculations, and then send him out to practice on people as best he can. He masters a few principles by helping some experienced doctor; he stumbles along and picks up a few patients, keeping those who survive his experiments. When he is approaching middle age, we organize medical institutes, we send out some skilled physicians and surgeons who unfold to him, for the first time, the mysteries of his profession, and who endeavor to interest him in the

science underlying his art. We send him some valuable bulletins, over which he labors and the secrets of which he but partially comprehends. The doctor protests that he is treated in a most irrational manner, a large part of his life has been wasted, he is now a man, his young manhood was neglected and the time for this instruction has gone by. All this special training should have been given to him when he was in a receptive, teachable condition. Why did he not get this special training when he was younger? Why did he not have the science along with his art? Ah, well, you say, surely he should not complain - the method of training and education of our agriculturists should be good enough for the doctors. But it is

not. The doctors say it is not, and people make the laws as they stand today. And so the medical profession has adopted its present line of training and education. Is it ra

tional?

Here is a youth who intends to become a lawyer. As soon as he has mastered the three R's he says that he will set up his office, he will go to the courts, he will look for clients, he will work his profession simply by practicing or by trying to practice. But the law steps in and puts up a barrier.

His brother lawyers control him and his training. This young man must become trained in the law, he must study first and practice afterwards. It will not do to send him instructors when he becomes a man. He must develop his mind in a legal mould. While he is growing and expanding, while his senses are keen, his memory retentive and his receptive powers are at their best, he must learn the science of the law. All wrong you say, for surely we do not train the great mass of our farmers in that way. There must be something wrong somewhere. Are we unjust to the lawyer in our present exacting of this special training? There is a mistake being made either with the lawyers or with the farmers.

And what about the teachers? What do we mean by these Model Schools, these Normal Schools and Normal Colleges? The law says that teachers must first receive special instruction in pedagogyteachers must first be trained to teach and must be tested.

All through our mechanical operations the same principles are being introduced. Instruction along the special lines of their work must be given to men when young to be effective, to be productive of most benefit.

But when we come to agriculture, how different it is! We have been saying to the young man who is to be a farmer, "Get a little education, just a little; then work yourself into a practical farmer, and when you are full-grown, when you reach middle age, we will organize institutes and send to you experts who will teach you the wonderful mysteries of your work. When your bodily strength is at its maximum, when your habits have become fixed and your mind has lost the keenness and curiosity of youth we will try to interest you in the science of your work. When you have lost much of the relish of reading we will send you bulletins to read, when you have become fixed and stable, we will try to bend your inflexible nature into new forms." You heave a sigh and say; "Ah, well, it's too late now why did I not get this when I was younger, when I was inclined to study, when my expanding nature was ready to receive instruction? If only I were a young man again, I could take all this in. I could profit by this instruction it's too late now to do me all the good that is intended."

Some people wonder why the farmers are slow to move, why they do not more readily adopt the teachings pointed out to them at Institutes and Conventions. Is it their fault altogether? Human nature is human nature, whether in agriculture or in professional life.

Is it not about time that we consider the proper training of the farmer to be as important a matter of national concern as the proper training of our professional men? If the education prescribed for our professional men is rational, there must be something irrational in the training. of our farmers. Institutes and Con

ventions are better far than nothing. Better to have reports and bulletins and addresses from matured farmers than none at all, but how much more effective all these would be, if the men to whom they are addressed, had received some preliminary training in the science as well as the art of their work. Some of the old countries of Europe have become thoroughly aroused to the importance of this question and there are signs here and there that in the newer lands of North America, there is an awakening to the fact that to educate a farmer you must begin at the educative period. One dollar spent in instruction in the scientific principles of agriculture, during youth, will

do more good than ten dollars spent on a farmer of mature years. Our present system is an attempt to move the great mass of agriculturists by working from the top downwards, but the trouble is, we are always working on top, we do not get down. The only rational method and the only way that promises sure and permanent success, is by beginning at the bottom. Is it not about time that we all, farmers and professional men, financiers and manufacturers, teachers and students, gave careful consideration to this question as to whether we are not working at this great problem of rural improvement from the wrong end?

It is said that a noted statesman of our country, at one time, waiting for a change of horses to the stagecoach, was standing on the summit of the Appalachian Mountains, looking westward. His body was erect, his cloak was drawn tightly about his shoulders, and his eyes had an intent but distant look. His whole deportment betokened a vivid inner contemplation, when a friend inquired: "What are you doing?" "I am listening to the tramp of oncoming generations" replied the states

man.

What a keen perception and happy faculty to be able to stand in the present and to hear or see the future. What a splendid power it would be for a teacher to be able, like this

man, to hear the steps and see the forms of the oncoming generation, whose direction and instruction he is now undertaking. If he could see the path which each pupil would follow when he has gone out from the public school, how many words of good counsel might be given for the journey, how many rough places in that path might be made smooth, and how many thorns might be taken away.

Is it not possible for a teacher of the higher grades or of the High School to learn in what direction this path leads, and to discover that future life work for which the pupil is best fitted? Is it not possible for a teacher to judge from the acts and habits of a boy, somewhat of the