It is most encouraging to observe the changing ideals of business and industry now in progress throughout the nation. The many vocational-training schools and the increasing attendance at the mechanical and industrial colleges bear witness of this fact. The American Negro, ever a faithful laborer, is now being taught in such institutions as Tuskegee and Hampton, not only to perform some honest work well but also to plan and prepare for a business of his own.
The son of the southern planter is becoming more and more imbued with the new spirit of efficiency through personal industry. On this matter a member of the faculty of the Louisiana Agricultural and Mechanical College says: “It is a mistake to think that the best of the country youth of the south are continuing in the old-fashioned ideal of becoming mere gentlemen of culture and leisure. In 1910 there were nearly 50,000 boys living in a dozen of the southern states, who astonished the entire country with their achievements in corn-raising. They ranged in age from fifteen to eighteen years. At the national exhibit held in Columbus, Ohio, one hundred of them showed an average yield of 134 bushels of corn to the acre. This corn-growing practice is under the direction of the national government, and is more than a big, exciting contest, it is a splendid course in rural home education.
Plate XXV.
Fig. 32.—A group of “coming” Kansans. Every boy pictured here carried away some sort of prize at a state corn show.
“We have at this college hundreds of young men from the plantations and they are intensely interested in working out the industrial problems that pertain to their own home affairs. I have been surprised at their eagerness to get into the soil and to do the mechanical work connected with their studies. All over the south there seems to be an awakening among the boys and young men, of an interest in the industrial and commercial problems of the plantation.”
The farm papers and the educational magazines in the southern states give much evidence of this same sort of awakening. The farmers’ and planters’ organizations, the local improvement and school betterment clubs, and many other movements, are giving both incentive and direction to the country youths who are at all inclined to find an interest in the home affairs. The rural parents who desire outside aid in arousing their boys’ interest in the home business may well seek such assistance by bringing the latter into closer touch with one of these progressive organizations.
Partnership between father and son
After the farmer’s son has fully settled upon his father’s business as an ideal one for himself, there may be brought to the latter a gradual relief from the worry of details, and that through a partnership management. A. G. Hulting, Jr., of Geneseo, Illinois, thus describes such a plan of coöperation in a letter to Arthur J. Bill, the agricultural writer:—