206 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



America if Daniel Webster had been kept on the farm. Who 

 would have answered Hayne in the United States Senate? Not 

 Webster if he had been kept on the farm. It would be a sorry 

 day for America if this movement to keep the boys on the farm 

 should actually succeed and for the next 40 years every boy 

 bom on the farm should stay on the farm. I venture to guess 

 that at the end of 40 years there would not be very many people 

 in thisi country to whom you could sell your choice products. 

 A very large per cent of the men who are creating the demands 

 for the products that you grow are men who did not stay on 

 the farm. Now do not misunderstand me. If that is the place 

 for the boy, if that is the vocation for the boy, then he ought to 

 stay there. It certainly is true that there are a great many boys 

 who have left the farm that ought to have staid on the farm. 

 There are a great many would-be Daniel Websters that might 

 be real farmers. 



I want to make myself clear. It seems to me that in America 

 the very genius of our life as a people rests upon this idea, — 

 the son of anybody may be anything that he is fit to be. It 

 would be unfortunate for us if we should ever get grafted upon 

 our country the caste idea of Continental Europe or the class 

 idea of England. We do not want it ever to happen in this 

 country that the son must follow in the footsteps of the father. 

 He may do it if that is what he is best suited to do, but he 

 should not be compelled to do so. We want it always to be the 

 case that the shoemaker's son may become the president of 

 the Dairymen'si Association, and that the son of the president 

 of the Dairymen's Association may become the president of 

 the Bar Association of the greatest city in the country. Ameri- 

 can growth and development are due to the fact that America 

 spells ''Opportunity." We have not had in the past and we 

 must not have in the future a system of education or a system 

 of life that will fix the children in the vocations of the fathers. 



This talk of keeping the boys on the farm, when interpreted 

 to mean that the farm must be made far more attractive than it 

 has been in the past, that there must be a greater opportunity 

 there for enjoyment of life, that there must be more thought 

 about the human being than there has been in the past, is a 

 fine thing. But if that boy on the farm, because of his gifts 

 and the strivings within his own soul, ought to be the man who 



