make it as self-sustaining as possible and to teach the students
agriculture, horticulture and the care and management of stock and
poultry.

"We have a foundry, machine shop, woolen mill, cotton mill and chemical
works at every high school, and while both sexes are taught farming and
gardening the boys are taught mechanical trades and the girls knitting,
spinning, weaving, cooking, housekeeping and nursing, so as to know how
to take care of the sick and injured, and at the age of eighteen years
the boys are drafted into the army and serve three years, building
railways, levees, canals, irrigation ditches, docks, warehouses and
other public buildings, and the girls are sent to the chemical
factories, woolen mills, cotton mills, paper mills, flax mills, sugar
mills and tobacco factories. No exceptions are made from service; all
must serve. Both boys and girls are dressed in military uniform and are
drilled two hours in rifle practice, firing ten shots at an imitation
enemy in a military suit, stuffed with straw, in different positions,
from one hundred to one thousand yards distance, every Sunday weather
permitting and in actual war one brigade of girls is assigned to every
division of the army to carry off the wounded and nurse them and to
assist in the defense whenever it is necessary, and also to garrison
and hold the lines of communication and their presence in the field
has been so inspiring to our boys that they never have turned their
backs to the enemy."



CHAPTER VIII.

THE WAR DEPARTMENT.