STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 129 



ence upon the farm. That this can be done, eA^en by farmers with 

 moderate means, is proved bj^ the fact that it has been done. 



Social life upon the farm must take a form that will not only gratify 

 the natural desires for social intercourse, but, at the same time, 

 quicken the whole being. The social life of the rural districts must 

 be organized by repeated efforts into forms that will deiiglit and 

 elevate. That the State Grange has done much in this direction will 

 be thankfully admitted by all who love their kind; and it has done 

 enough to prove that still grander results in this direction can be 

 accomplished by the same and other instrumentalities. 



But more must be done, if the producing class is to take its proper 

 place as the leading and molding influence of our people. 



It is not enough "that among our farmers can be found some of the 

 ablest thinkers upon political subjects. A broader range of thought 

 can and must be had. No faculty can be safely neglected. The 

 dwarfed faculty will always wreak its vengeance upon the guilty one. 

 And we have no right to despise any faculty that has been implanted 

 in us by the great Creator. That it exists is enough to command 

 respect. The artistic sense, the poetical gift, -the imagination and 

 fancy, the love of exquisite literature, are the outcome of faculties 

 that are as imperative in their claims as the faculty that invents a 

 piece of machinery. The faculties that push man onward to the 

 study of the secrets of nature — the nature of soil, the character of 

 animals— are quite as honorable and as worthy of cultivation as the 

 faculty that teaches how to buy in the cheapest markets and to sell 

 in the' dearest. And the obligation to develop all these_ faculties is 

 as binding upon the farmer as upon the citizen of the city; and the 

 farm life that fails to recognize this truth contains the source of its 

 own decadence. 



The mental life of the farm, it must be admitted, is one-sided and 

 warped, and the children see it, and flee from it. 



But let me come to some special points; for I speak upon this occa- 

 sion, not to amuse, but, in so far as it lies in me, to add something to 

 the thought of our people upon these grave subjects. 



If there is to be any fundamental change in the mental life of 

 farmers, such a change as will lift them as a class to the place that 

 belongs to them, they must broaden their mental life. 



Firat — The public and private schools must be improved and used. 

 In this there must be no false economy. Competent teachers and 

 abundant apparatus for instruction must be supplied, no matter what 

 the cost. The farmer must have, and ought to have, better schools 

 than the inhabitants of cities and towns. 



Second — The schools preparatory to the University, which Avere out- 

 lined by the last Legislature, must be built up. Every child must 

 have an opportunity to pursue the higher education. The many will 

 not do so ; but each one must be permitted to take all that he can 

 and will receive. In no other way can a people be lifted into a high 

 mental and social condition. It is useless to say that the bright ones 

 will take care of themselves, for so they will. It is the average mind 

 that is to be cared for, for upon that average mind depends the well- 

 being of a people. 



Third — Your State University, manned by the ablest of men, must 

 be used by the farming classes. And why should it not be ? It is 

 your University, and it has been fostered by a healthy agricultural 



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