bors, with the same conditions of soil, climate, and rainfall, averaged only half as much; or in South Carolina, where Mr E. McI. Williamson has, by the proper application of fertilizers, modern methods, and little additional expense, increased his production of corn from 15. bushels per acre to an average of nearly 60 bushels, and of cotton from less than half a bale to an average of a bale per acre. Such examples are most convincing, and will do much to arouse interest in the practical value of Conservation.

The conservation of the National health deserves to be emphasized even when we have under consideration this general subject from purely a business standpoint. When we consider that tuberculosis alone costs the people of the State of New York over $200,000,000 per year, and that it is a preventable disease, and that that $200,000,000 might be used as capital to give to millions of people profitable and wholesome occupation, the relation of the health movement to the business interests of the country is self-evident.

Of course, this suggestion is based upon entire confidence in the cooperation of the daily press-I have no doubt about that whatever. The newspapers and magazines are not only most potent factors in spreading enlightenment, but they can always be depended on to take enthusiastic hold of any movement that is honestly and disinterestedly for the general good. (Applause)

This whole subject of Conservation is fundamentally a business proposition-a question of managing the people's business with the same care and foresight that we put into private business—a question of using the Nation's capital in a way that will produce a regular, steady and proper income year after year, and at the same time so safeguard the principal that the people of these United States may go on in business indefinitely.

History tells of many peoples who have spent their capital and disappeared from the face of the earth. Let us so organize this Nation's business that it may go on down the centuries as history's exception to the general rule of rise and fall (applause). As we point with pride, honor and gratitude to the signers of our Declaration of Independence and the makers of our Constitution, so may the coming generations of Americans, having in mind the fates of other peoples, look back with gratitude to us and have occasion to exclaim "See what would also have been our lot had it not been for the foresight and business judgment of our ancestors of the Twentieth Century-worthy successors of the great men who founded this Government of the people by the people and for the people, not only for their own time, but for all time." (Applause)

President BAKER-Ladies and Gentlemen: Nothing is more important to Conservation than education; and I have the honor now to introduce the Commissioner of Education, Dr Elmer Ellsworth Brown, who will address you on "Education and Conservation.”

Commissioner BROWN-Mr President, Ladies, and Gentlemen: Every uplift and reform comes back to education. It is uplift carried to the sticking point. It is reform continually going on. In speaking of the educational aspect of Conservation, I am not concerned with anything merely incidental or subordinate, but have to do with a matter as large and vital as any upon which the success of the Conservation movement depends.

It must be admitted on the other hand that education has much to get from the Conservation movement as well as much to give. The schools are learners as well as teachers. To support and further Conservation they will need to learn Conservation facts and doctrines. This Congress and American education are aiming at the same thing in the end-the betterment of American life. What shall it profit to conserve everything else on earth if we fail to conserve the spirit and fiber of our citizens, young and old? That is a view in which Conservationists and educators are fully agreed.

Now, what is our educational establishment, as it stands over against the body of our material resources? It is a group of State school systems, having in the aggregate a certain National character. We cannot insist too strongly that education is primarily a concern of the States. This group of State school systems represents a combination of public and private agencies, for our State institutions are supplemented by many institutions privately supported and controlled. It represents an extraordinary unity as between elementary education and the higher education, as between the democracy of the lower schools and the science of the universities. It represents, moreover, in all of its grades, an everlasting devotion to intellectual and moral values, as having to do with enlightened citizenship. This is the educational establishment that faces the needs and aspirations with which the Conservation Congress is concerned. There are three or four ways in which I should like to speak of the great work of that establishment as related to your own great work:

1. In the first place, there is the fact that our scholastic education is facing about and turning its attention toward industry and industrial life. This is a new movement in which all States and sections are taking part. It is a change which is attended with the gravest difficulty. No one who is not familiar with the actual administration of schools and colleges can guess how hard a thing it is to introduce a new practice of teaching and make it successful at the hands of many teachers in widely different communities. Yet our educational leaders have addressed themselves to this task with courage and enthusiasm. In 25 States provision is now made for teaching agriculture in public schools. Such provision takes the form of agricultural high schools in Alabama, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Virginia, and in several other widely scattered States. In the best of these schools, there is arising a new interest in all that relates to the soil and the life on the farm. It is no uncommon thing to have class

work interrupted by visits from neighboring farmers, who consult the expert teachers regarding drainage and fertilizers and the care of their horses and cows. The boys try out at school the seed corn they are to plant on the home farm, and the girls learn at school to raise poultry and vegetables and make from them appetizing dishes for home consumption. Large provision has been made for consolidated rural schools, and in Minnesota lands are added for instruction in the practice of farming. Oklahoma requires the teaching of agriculture in all public schools, with the cooperation of the normal schools and the agricultural college. This new instruction is spreading in unexpected ways. Columbia University, in the heart of New York City, has begun to offer courses in agriculture, taking up this work where it left it off early in the nineteenth century. And an agricultural conference has been held at Bryn Mawr College. After that what more is there to be said! (Applause)

But there is still a good deal more. Much might be said about the new trade schools in the cities, and the new instruction in household arts for girls; but I pass these matters by and go back to the farm. What is especially interesting is the freedom with which new modes of teaching have been adopted. Corn contests, potato trains, demonstration farms-our old manuals of teaching knew nothing of these things. Then there is all manner of summer schools, short winter courses, farmers' institutes, and an assortment of other teaching devices. The University of Idaho is employing three field men, a horticulturist, a dairyman, and an irrigation and potato specialist, and is sending regular schools of agriculture about the State on wheels. In Virginia and three or four other States supervisors of rural schools have been appointed. They are making a close study of the resources, industries, and social needs of typical sections of their States, and are lending new life to the effort to make the schools more directly serviceable.

One of the earlier developments of this movement, and one that comes into peculiarly close relations with the Conservation campaign, is the setting apart of a day in each year for planting trees. Nebraska is looked upon as the original center of this movement. A recent report shows the planting of 20,000 trees in a single year in Minnesota, in connection with the Arbor Day celebration in this State (applause). The observance has received a fresh impetus in more than twenty of the States from the publication by the State education offices of attractive manuals offering suggestions regarding the celebration.

The leaders of the new movement in our schools have called for a redirection of rural education. Such a redirection is actually taking. place. So much has been begun that it would be easy to believe that the work is done. There are many who suppose that this new education is already in the saddle and is moving triumphantly forward. But that is a mistake. Great changes in education are not brought

about so easily. There is a long campaign and a hard campaign. before us if the desired ends are to be attained. State superintendents of public instruction, those who are training teachers in colleges and normal schools, and all who are engaged in this work in supervisory and teaching positions, will need for a long time to come the moral backing and the material support which this influential body can command. That is what they should have without reserve and without stint. (Applause)

The lack of well-prepared teachers of these subjects is one of the most serious difficulties the new movement has encountered. A recent report shows about seventy State normal schools offering regular instruction in agriculture. The Nelson Amendment to the Agricultural Appropriation Act of 1907 provided Federal funds for the training of teachers in the land-grant colleges. At least thirty of these colleges are now offering such instruction. But this work, too, is only begun.

2. And this suggests the second thing that I wish to say. The new movement is making a new demand for men in the business of teaching-strong men, technically trained for their work. If education is to help Conservation, the teaching profession must be enabled to compete with the industries in attracting and holding such men We are considering both ends of our educational system, the scientific end in the universities and the popular end in the schools. A man who has enough knowledge and skill to train others for an industrial occupation has enough to give him a place in the industry itself. And the industry pays a great deal better than the teaching. It is not necessary that the income of teachers and that of industrial leaders should be equalized. Many men will continue to teach because they prefer to teach. But when the disparity becomes too great, many good teachers, in fairness to themselves and to their families, must give up the struggle and go over into the more lucrative employments. This is what has been going on in recent years. With a rapidly growing population and an increasing body of teachers, we have fewer men engaged in teaching than we had five years ago. We need opportunities in the teaching profession that will attract strong men to face the work before us (applause). I have the highest regard for the work of our women teachers; but both men and women are needed to give us a well balanced public education, and I welcome the alliance of the schools with the Conservation movement, because of the new demand it makes for competent men in the schools.

Let me point out some of the places in our scholastic organization where strong men are needed, for Conservation purposes as well as for educational purposes. It is generally understood that men of the largest caliber are in demand as presidents of technical colleges and universities. It should be equally obvious that such men are needed as State superintendents of public instruction. We have

such men, and have had many such in the office of State superintendent; but in many of the States that office cannot attract men as do our college presidencies, because of the short term of service and other limitations with which it is hedged about. We need broad men and strong men as instructors in the technical departments of our higher institutions. Those who deal with our National resources industriously can know but little of the personal strain and sacrifice with which other men have stuck to their task of dealing with these same resources educationally. In our secondary and elementary education there is not only need of specially trained men as teachers, but there is need in particular of specially trained supervisors.

I was in Vermont not many days ago, and there I saw one result of a new law, which provides for the employment of union district superintendents of schools, at a respectable minimum salary. The State superintendent had called together these local superintendents in their annual conference. There were nearly forty of them, where three years before there was not one. Rather young men they were for the most part, though well-seasoned in the responsibilities of teaching. College graduates, alert and ambitious, they gave themselves over to the business which had brought them together, with a heartiness that was vastly encouraging. Other States have made provisions for a similar staff of supervisory officers. New York is one of the latest to take such action. The great States of the West, in which the county is a common unit of school supervision, need in their counties traveling supervisors of special subjects, particularly those relating to the practical business of life on the farm. Such supervisors can become veritable evangelists, bringers of good news concerning the things which make our National resources interesting and full of hope.

3. I have spoken of the new movement toward industrial education in our several States. I have tried to show that this movement is making only gradual headway against great difficulties, but that it can become a strong reinforcement of Conservation and of other public interests if given a fair chance. Now, in the third place it should be said that the Federal Government is concerned with giving it a fair chance. We have no National system of school administration. We do not want such a system. No one seriously proposes to relieve the States of their powers and responsibilties in this matter. But how can the Nation be indifferent to the very stuff out of which it is made? While we have no National system of schools, we have and we are bound to have a National program of education.

It is no new thing that I am proposing. I would simply propose that the program blocked out and entered upon many years ago should be carried out and made as useful as possible. This National program is a simple one. In the earlier days it consisted in the granting of lands for educational purposes. Within the past half-century two additions to this earlier plan have been made. The first of these