for it, he leaves the harvesting to others and presses into a fresh field. One forward step each year is his aim. By 1895, when he was appointed Commissioner of Agriculture, in addition to his office of Commissioner of Dairying, the Dominion had been leavened rather thoroughly as to the advantage of dairying. There remained the marketing end to be perfected. The goods were not reaching the English market in good condition, and the price that their quality warranted, therefore, was not being obtained. Steps were taken to develop a chain of cold storage that should begin at the creamery and terminate only at the market on the eastern side of the Atlantic. The idea was approved by Parliament, and once more "paternalism" was permitted to perform its work. To-day, assisted by the Dominion Government, the chain is complete. It serves not only for butter, but for every other product that requires refrigeration. The service extends from one end of the Dominion to the other, and is within reach of producers both great and sal!.

The tale of his multiplied activities and accomplishments in the combined offices is a long one. Whatever things would work together to make farming more profitable through economical management and in improvement in quality of product, to that he turned his attention. Did he desire to assist in the development of a bacon industry? He experimented with different foods, and, sitting astride the animals, killed them with his own hand, in order to determine the effect upon them in relative vitality by counting their dying gasps and feeling the force of the pulsing heartbeats in the struggle against death. What poultryman has not sighed for a large supply of eggs in the winter season, when the prices are high? By taking fowls back to the simple life of pure air, plain food, and plenty of exercise, Commissioner Robertson demonstrated how they could be made to lay abundantly when the temperature was fifteen degrees below

zero.

Having rounded out in a measure his scheme for improving agriculture as a profitable occupation for adults, he turned his attention to the future of Canadian farming. At this point his planning

began to parallel the idea of Sir William C. Macdonald. He, too, was thinking of Canada's future in its children. "Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay."

There are few thinking people in the United States who do not realize that there is great room for improvement in educational facilities in the rural sections of the country, and also a demand for better equipped farmers. Canada's problem is the saine as that of the United States.

Lord Salisbury once said that the great problem, not only of England, but of all humanity, is to maintain the fertility of the soil by the activity of plants and the activity of bacteria. Three essentials for the progressive development of human life are: (1) food, (2) protection for the young, and (3) continuation of the lessons of experience. The three fundamental occupations, therefore, in Dr. Robertson's view of life, are farming, home-making, and teaching. Upon this "tripod," as he calls it, he is building his scheme for rural improvement. Whether we like it or not, it must be that some shall till the soil if the human race is to survive. How are the conditions to be amended? Dr. Robertson proposes two ways:

(1) By practical illustrations of how the occupation in each locality may be made more attractive, profitable, and satisfying to those engaged in farming.

(2) By such an adjustment of schools and of training that the children will be attracted to rural occupations and will be qualified to be successful in them.

This is his educational platform. Dr. Robertson is constructive. He always has an end in view. These two planks comprise the platform of the Macdonald Movement, which he organized.

Working in harmony with Sir William and backed by the funds of this constructive manufacturer, Dr. Robertson introduced the leaven of a system which correlates education with agriculture from the primary school in the country district to the college. The two men have provided a specimen of what they think the Dominion of Canada needs, in the hope that its value will be so clearly demonstrated that the people will carry it forward themselves. The gifts of Sir William are intended as leaven only.

The philosophy and practice of this pair of men in their undertakings for "building up the country in its children " are illustrated in the method which they took for teaching the lesson of crop improvement to Canadian farmers. In 1899 Dr. Robertson wished to learn whether the country was ripe for the acceptance of the theory that it is worth while for a farmer to use the best seed, and whether the interest of children in agriculture could be stimulated. He took from his private purse the sum of $100 and offered it in prizes to Canadian boys and girls who would send him the largest heads from the most vigorous plants of wheat and oats taken from their fathers' farms. The response was remarkable. The letters which Dr. Robertson received from the farmers and their boys and girls were so suggestive and encouraging that the following winter he said, in substance, to Sir William :

"Here is a great chance to do some educational work in progressive agriculture; to do something interesting, something attractive, something definite, something beneficial to the whole community, something easy, and yet with

plenty of difficulties. Farmers and their families may fail to appreciate the educational advantages of a plan or scheme set out in a written statement, but here is something which would be so helpful and instructive to boys and girls that they would go on with it, and the habits of observation and thought and study would go on with them. I would like you to give me $10,000 for prizes to set and keep this thing going for three years."

Sir William gave the money with a right good will. For the main competition the competitors were required to pick each year by hand the largest heads from the most vigorous and productive plants in sufficient quantity to obtain seed from these heads to sow a quarter of an acre the following year. The careful records which were kept of the number of grains a hundred heads, and also of the weight, showed that in the three years the percentage of increase on the average for the Dominion for spring wheat was 18 per cent in the number of grains and 28 per cent in the weight, while in the oats the figures were 19 and 27 respectively. These were the results from several hundred seed grain plots operated by

As may be imagined, the children were not the only ones who gained from this practical demonstration. Their parents and neighbors learned the lesson also. This contest gave birth to the Canadian Seed Growers' Association, organized for the purpose of improving the crops of Canada; it is coextensive with the Dominion. It was estimated in 1906 that the crops of Canada already had been increased in value to the extent of half a million dollars as a direct result of the competitions. Moreover, it had been demonstrated that children could be interested in agriculture.

Manual training, the vehicle by which agriculture and education were to be brought together, was the next step. Arguing that an example provided in a town is the most effective method of stimulating the officials of rural schools, Sir William, upon the advice of Dr. Robertson, founded throughout Canada manual training centers at twenty-one places. These were attended by 7,000 children and cost $3,600 a month for teachers. At the end of three years the local authorities were free to continue the schools or not, as they chose. The leaven performed its task. In every case the school was taken over and others added. In Nova Scotia more than a score of school centers of the Macdonald type have been built and are conducted by means of local funds. In Ontario the three Macdonald centers have grown to more than twoscore.

The next step was the introduction into the rural schools of manual training, modified for the performance of its new duty. In order to make manual training effective in the country, and of such a nature as to accomplish the desired results, it was essential that it have certain characteristics. It was desirable that nature study, elementary biology, and elementary agriculture should become a part of the curriculum. The two leaveners now took

two steps. They introduced the leaven of school gardens and the consolidation of rural schools. School gardens were attached to each of five schools in each of five provinces. A trained instructor was put in charge of each group of five schools, devoting one day a week to each school

teachers as well as the children. The gardens have been a marked success, not only educationally as manual training, but agriculturally. Most useful lessons were learned of the advantages of using selected. seed, of the methods of protecting crops from insects and fungous diseases, and of the rotation of crops. At a school garden in Prince Edward Island the children reaped 32 per cent more wheat from a plot sown with selected seed than from a similar plot sown with unselected seed. In most of the gardens two plots side by side were planted with potatoes. The treatment of each plot was similar in every respect, except that the plants in one were sprayed with Bordeaux mixture to prevent blight. In every case the yield of potatoes from the sprayed plot was larger than the other. The increase was from 41 to 111 per cent. Bowesville, Ontario, the center of the largest potato-producing section of eastern Canada, was put on another footing of profit by the work done at the Macdonald school garden attached to the school there.

As remarkable as these results with crops were the effects on the children themselves. In Ontario uniform examinations for entrance to the high schools are held in July. In 1906, in Carleton County, in schools without gardens 49 per cent of the candidates passed, while of those who came from the five schools to which were attached gardens 71 per cent were successful. Apparently the work with the hands in the garden increased the capacity for work with books. Sir William founded four consolidated schools, one in each of the provinces of Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. The school work was graded, provision was made for classes in manual training, household science, and nature study based on work in school gardens, and wagons were provided for the transportation of children. The cost of the schools for the three years was $180,000. This leaven also accomplished its mission. Local school boards are consolidating the feeble country schools. In Nova Scotia alone there are more than twenty-two consolidated schools in the room of fifty-three of the old type. Consolidation in Canada, where it has been

tried, has raised the standard of rural education and increased the daily attendance from 50 to 100 per cent.

These educational reforms created a demand for teachers trained in nature study, agriculture, manual training, and household science. In order to meet this demand, Sir William provided at the Ontario Agricultural College, at Guelph, two large buildings for the residence and training of teachers. This school also trained for the business of home-making in the country, the college having already provided for agricultural education.

The crown of all is Macdonald College, at Ste. Anne de Bellevue. The province of Quebec, unlike several of the other provinces, has no agricultural college supported by public funds. Sir William has Sir William has supplied the deficiency with an institution. which rounds out the plan of the Macdonald Movement. Intended for training in agriculture, home-making, and teaching, it is probably the best equipped and most advanced institution of its kind in the world. It stands for the advancement of education, the prosecution of research work, and the dissemination of knowledge, all with particular regard to the interests and needs of the population in rural districts. It is Sir William's greatest yeast-cake. It is the supreme illustration of Dr. Robertson's methods of leavening. The mere fact of its existence is an educational force, for it advertises the underlying idea of the Macdonald Movement and sets people to thinking about it.

Its value in this respect was not forgotten when the site was selected. The college stands at one of the few points in Canada through which the two great Canadian trunk railways pass, These These

roads cross through the very center of the farm within a few yards of each other, and the buildings are visible to every transcontinental traveler. It is a display advertisement of the first rank. It does for Canadian rural education what the eleven-ton cheese exhibited at the Chicago Exposition in 1893 by Dr. Robertson did for Canadian cheese. It sets people to talking about it. Relatively few farmers' children will have an opportunity to enter an agricultural college. The stimulation and technical knowledge must be brought to their door. The very fact that it was thought worth while to spend so much money in support of an idea indirectly serves as a stimulus to the adoption of the rural school system to meet the needs of the people it serves.

Who shall foretell the results of the efforts of the two Canadian leaveners? The United States, as well as Canada, has an interest in them. Although Dr. Robertson has given up the principalship of Macdonald College, he will continue the promotion in Canada of the application of the principles of rural education lying at the base of the Macdonald Movement. He intends shortly to begin a journey through various parts of Europe, extending it afterwards to Japan, Australasia, India, and South Africa, for the purpose of investigating rural conditions in the interest of Canada, and to present the educational ideas he has developed. It may be added that the United States, on his return, is likely to receive some of the benefit of his experience and study.

"The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened."