452 Bureau of Farmers' Institutes. 



and be a powerful stimulnnt toward procuring the organization 

 and means for extending similar courses of study to all the high 

 schools and academies at which country boys and girls seek an 

 education. 



I believe that if the attention of the young people could be 

 occupied with subjects of living interest we would hear less com- 

 plaint of the boys breaking away from school at the earliest pos- 

 sible age. It seems as if the managers of many high schools and 

 academies take more pride in building up efficient college pre- 

 paratory courses for the few than in meeting the needs of the 

 many. Six lads well fitted for college is a worthy result, but sixty 

 young minds better prepared to meet life intelligently on the farm 

 or in any calling would be a more convincing demonstration of 

 the utility of school education. 



The next step, then, which I would see taken in education is a 

 fuller recognition in the schools of those branches of learning 

 through which we come to a larger understanding of ourselves and 

 of the world of matter and force. 



It is with more satisfaction than I can express, that as presid- 

 ing officer of the New York State Dairymen's Association, I have 

 the pleasure of meeting you here at this twenty-fourth annual 

 gathering. Last year, at Cortland, when you did me the honor to 

 elect me president of your honorable association, I said to you 

 that the only way we could hope for a continuation of past suc- 

 cess was by united effort. The splendid exhibit of dairy products 

 and dairy utensils which we see in the exhibition hall, shows that 

 faithful and systematic hard work has been done, and, when we 

 meet here, this interested audience of producers and manufacturers 

 of dairy products, gathered together for the opening session, we 

 cannot help but feel that there has been, and is, a united effort 

 to make this meeting a success. We occasionally hear the remark, 

 " What is the use of all this work ? I have never seen any benefit 

 come from all these discussions about butter and cheese-making 

 and other kindred dairy topics." This question, I believe, an- 

 swers itself, and that, as long as there are people who make such 

 remarks there is a necessity of coming together and discussing 

 these questions — in trying thus to educate each producer up to 

 the point of seeing the necessity and economy in getting the most 

 and the best product possible from his animals. If the producer 

 delivers the product to another to manufacture, he must be taught 

 to understand the desirability of having a clean, healthful product, 

 in order to insure satisfactory results in his manufactured goods. 



