STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 99 



ing to increase intelligence and power, and the peaceful redress of 

 grievances. 



In the increasing demand of the agricultural classes for an educa- 

 tion more adapted to their needs, the farmer has discovered why he 

 has been kept out of his birthright. It was not by bad luck ; it was 

 not by laziness ; it was for the want of trained intelligence and skill. 

 The brain power of any class must ultimately be the measure of its 

 social and political power. The farmers have been saying this at 

 their meetings for several years; the Grangers have made the educa- 

 tional plank the strongest plank in their platform. This is my 

 warrant for choosing child culture for my text. Our progress during 

 the last six years is due to our increased facilities of travel and trans- 

 portation. So many are now busy with plans for increasing immi- 

 gration, that it may be useful to have one voice directing the public 

 mind to the solution of a more important question, viz : how to grow 

 a crop of sound-bodied, right-minded, clean-hearted children, who 

 will " take to work " as naturally and kindly as a duck takes to water. 

 I hold that the end of the crop is the eater; the end of labor, the 

 betterment of the laborer; and that human improvement is as 

 legitimate a subject for discussion in agricultural societies as that of 

 colts or chickens. We have hitherto left this subject pretty much to 

 the doctors — doctors of the body and of the soul — whose occupa- 

 tion will be gone when man truly reflects the Divine image. And 

 although we need the help of these doctors still in the work of human 

 improvement, and although we are immensely indebted to them for 

 what has already been accomplished, I think it is better to pay them 

 for the ounce of prevention than for the pound of cure. Nature 

 herself protests when a lean, dwarfed apology for a man calls himself 

 master of the noble brute creatures, which have become more than 

 half human in their intelligence and beauty through careful selec- 

 tions, breeding, and nurture. An organization like this, having for 

 its object the improvement of the farmer, as well as the farm, will 

 not love a horse less because it loves a child more. The interests of 

 agriculture are bound up with those of education, especially in that 

 modern form of it which is denominated "technical." The farmer's 

 children are "the best working stock on the farm;" and the value of 

 skill, intelligence, and good character applied there is more and more 

 highly appreciated. This is the lowest, most material view of the 

 subject, but it is one that the political economist will not overlook. 

 Do our schools, do any of them, meet the great demands of agricult- 

 ure and mechanical industry ? Hundreds of the best and most 

 progressive teachers say they do not ; thousands and tens of thou- 

 sands of anxious parents say they do not. 



In a recent meeting of a State Agricultural Society in the East it 

 was said : " What we want is not mere culture, but culture applied, . 

 culture realized, culture put at work, and demonstrating day by day 

 its uses." The masses of our people have little time to pursue 

 branches of study which have not some direct bearing upon their 

 callings or avocations. Aside from the elements, which all should 

 receive, the importance of special knowledge, bearing upon special 

 work, is paramount. Our system should be changed, so that from 

 the highest classes in the country schools to the University, by un- 

 broken gradations of the most liberal training in the acquisition of 

 knowledge and skill, men and women should be fitted worthily to 

 perform their appointed service in the industrial state. 



