was now a general acceptance
of the doctrine that the mental and physical training of every child,
white and black, was the responsibility of the state; Aycock's campaign
had worked such a popular revolution on this subject that no politician
who aspired to public office would dare to take a contrary view. Yet the
economic difficulty still remained. The South was poor; whatever might
be the general desire, the taxable resources were not sufficient to
support such a comprehensive system of popular instruction as existed in
the North and West. Any permanent improvement must therefore be based
upon the strengthening of the South's economic position. Essentially the
task was to build up Southern agriculture, which for generations had
been wasteful, unintelligent and consequently unproductive. Such a
far-reaching programme might well appall the most energetic reformer,
but Dr. Buttrick set to work. He saw little light until his attention
was drawn to a quaint and philosophic gentleman--a kind of bucolic Ben
Franklin--who was then obscurely working in the cotton lands of
Louisiana, making warfare on the boll weevil in a way of his own. At
that time Dr. Seaman A. Knapp had made no national reputation; yet he
had evolved a plan for redeeming country life and making American farms
more fruitful that has since worked marvellous results. There was
nothing especially sensational about its details. Dr. Knapp had made the
discovery in relation to farms that the utilitarians had long since made
with reference to other human activities: that the only way to improve
agriculture was not to talk about it, but to go and do it. During the
preceding fifty years agricultural colleges had sprung up all over the
United States--Dr. Knapp had been president of one himself; practically
every Southern state had one or more; agricultural lecturers covered
thousands of miles annually telling their yawning audiences how to farm;
these efforts had scattered broadcast much valuable information about
the subject, but the difficulty lay in inducing the farmers to apply it.
Dr. Knapp had a new method. He selected a particular farmer and
persuaded him to work his fields for a period according to methods
which he prescribed. He told his pupil how to plough, what seed to
plant, how to space his rows, what fertilizers to use, and the like. If
a selected acreage yielded a profitable crop which the farmer could sell
at an increased price Dr. Knapp had sufficient f