“I’ll admit,” said the professor, “that much of our work in agriculture is pretty elementary.”
“It’s intermediate school work,” said Jim. “It’s a wrong to force boys and girls to leave their homes and live in a college to get so much of what they should have before they’re ten years old.”
“There’s something in what you say,” said the professor, “but some experiment station men seem to think that agriculture in the common schools will take from the young men and women the felt need, and therefore the desire to come to the college.”
“If you can’t give them anything better than high-school work,” said Jim, “that will be so; but if the science and art of agriculture is what I think it is, it would make them hungry for the advanced work that really can’t be done at home. To make the children wait until they’re twenty is to deny them more than half what the college ought to give them—and make them pay for what they don’t get.”
“I think you’re right,” said the professor.
“Give us the kind of schools I ask for,” cried Jim, “and I’ll fill a college like this in every congressional district in Iowa, or I’ll force you to tear this down and build larger.”
The professor laughed at his enthusiasm.
More nearly happy, and rather shorter of money than he had recently been, Jim journeyed home among the companions from his own neighborhood, in a frenzy of plans for the future. Mr. Hofmyer had dropped from his mind, until Con Bonner, his old enemy, drew him aside in the vestibule of the train and spoke to him in the mysterious manner peculiar to politicians.
“What kind of a proposition did that man Hofmeister make you?” he inquired. “He asked me about you, and I told him you’re a crackerjack.”
“I’m much obliged,” replied Jim.