AGRICULTURAL FAIRS AND THEIR BENEFITS. 99 



changing industrial life will, in the future, be reflected in a 

 change in the coming type of fairs. 



The social feature of fairs, though varying in method of 

 expression, will remain a permanent one. The gregarious, sport 

 loving and social traits are deeply bedded and constitutional 

 characteristics of man. They will abide with him, and in the 

 future as in the past, there will be a strong tendency to introduce 

 features of fairs that minister to these desires. T perceive no 

 valid reason why the unbroken historic tendency of fairs in this 

 direction should not continue to be recognized. Man is some- 

 thing more than a mere working machine, however splendidly 

 effective that machine may become. After the long strain of 

 seed time and harvest, muscular and mental relaxation and social 

 good cheer are natural demands which, when properly respond- 

 ed to, may add to rather than detract from the value of fairs. 

 These festive features, however, must be kept carefully in hand. 

 The tendency of many of our fairs to increase gate receipts by 

 pandering to the lower instincts of man cannot for a moment be 

 tolerated. Nothing should be permitted that would wound the 

 sensibilities of virtuous, high minded men and women with high 

 Christian sensibilities, ^lany of our fairs, held in the name of 

 public good, violate not only civil, but moral laws, by admitting 

 gambling devices under many guises, and midways of distinctly 

 low moral tone. What avails it if we increase the powers of 

 man as a working machine, and degrade him as a man? A 

 stable social fabric rests upon morality, and any sacrifice in this 

 direction cannot be counterbalanced by any increased producing 

 power that may be gained by fairs. Society itself is to blame 

 whenever it supports a fair in which occur features that appeal 

 to the baser instincts of its children. Any fair manager, capable 

 of an attack upon the morals of the community through these 

 cursed features of fairs, is capable, when released from the 

 restraints of society, of indulging in the vices that he licenses, 

 and is not a man to be trusted. 



As industrial exhibits, fairs are to rural education what muse- 

 ums and laboratories are to schools. Object teaching or eye 

 education, wherever it is possible to give it, is becoming the gen- 

 eral and most effective method of imparting instruction. State- 

 ments in the abstract, and descriptions of things and qualities 

 appeal, if at all, but imperfectly and slowly to the mind, espe- 



