Irrigation and Education, I

Irrigation and Education By Prof. O. W Israelsen, of the Utah Agricultural College .

The west is rapidly growing into national significance. Its mining, manufacturing, timber, grazing, water power and agricultural resources are now contributing in large measure to urgent national and international needs. That each of the great natural resources about us must be used with the utmost economy in order to meet the needs of the hour cannot be doubted, but the need for careful handling of our agricultural resources is especially important. And water to be used for irrigation is not only the most basic element of our agricultural resources but it is also the most limited one. Every irrigator now carries — a keen responsibility a responsibility comparable indeed to that which rested upon the shoulders of the pioneer irrigators of 1847. That the fathers of modern irrigation carried their responsibility well is true beyond doubt. The great commonwealth which has grown from their humble beginnings is ample evidence of their success. Irrigation and education have grown equally. So similar has their progress been, so steady their growth and so remarkable the results of their development that mistaken ideas concerning them are now frequently entertained. Many people seriously believe that in order to succeed on an irrigated farm, it is only necessary to provide a ditch and to turn water on the

land; and similarly some people entertain the idea that to acquire an education it is only necessary to go to college. Success in irrigation and in education rests alike on some fundamental principles, most important of which are: priority, purpose, place, perseverance, and progress, five principles which may well be designated as the five p's. In connection with each of these five p's certain interesting comparisons between irrigation and education occur to the writer and are pointed out in this paper and in four similar ones to appear in later numbers of the Era. I. Priority

The first men to take water from a stream system have many advantages over later comers. They have access to the most fertile lands, and opportunity to choose the locations for their canals most favored by nature. The cleaning and grading

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of their farms, as well as the construction of their canal systems can be accomplished at a minimum expense. Yet some irrigation systems constructed after years of early development are eminently successful. The greater financial sacrifice required in later years stimulates greater care in development. In the same way men who begin to acquire an education early in life have many advantages over those who begin after maturity. Boys usually have fewer responsibilities to draw their minds from educational work than young men have, and young men have fewer cares than men of middle years. The maximum brain fertility occurs during youth, and the breadth of choice of vocation decreases with advance in years. The money cost of an education, though of minor importance, is also less during yovith than after maturity. But in spite of the advantages of beginning an education while young, many men, whose early lives have been relatively dormant, have, after maturity, become well educated and have lived eminently successful lives. The makers of irrigation law have long insisted that "The first in time is the first in right." General recognition of this principle has resulted in its being designated the "priority of rights doctrine." Irrigation law thus stimulates early development of natural resources. Likewise the Maker of life's law has decreed that the man who, in his early years, develops his potential God-given powers, has thereafter the greatest ability to use those powers. The law of life thus favors an early development of the natural powers given to every man by his Creator. The "first in time is the first in right" to continuous educational advancement. Fundamentally important as is priority, the first of the five p's, to both the perpetuation of irrigation and to the acquirement of an education, priority alone avails one but little. That purpose is also a basic element, in perpetuating irrigation and in acquiring an education, will be pointed out in the next number of the Era. Logan, Utah