The Gospel of the Farmers' Institute Work 1653 



I have never believed for a moment that the importance of the 

 institute work was to be compared to the College of Agriculture 

 or some other agencies that I might mention. I have never flat- 

 tered myself that its teachings had either the breadth or exactness 

 of the more pretentious extension schools. I have always been 

 glad to recognize the need of improvement in scope and plan, if 

 not in method, but I say now and I am wondering how generally 

 you will agree Avith me, that the institute as now carried on, with 

 brief addresses which shall carry inspiration quite as much as 

 information, is the most efficient means yet devised of reaching 

 the untrained farmer. I believe the results attained have been 

 large in proportion to the money expended and I do not see any 

 reason why the work may not continue practically in its present 

 general form for many years. 



'Now to pass to secondly. If there is to be the teaching of man 

 to man, then there must be the human mouth-piece. Listen then, 

 " This is a true saying, if a man desireth the office of a Bishop, 

 he desireth a good work. A bishop, then, must be blameless, the 

 husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to 

 hospitality, apt to teach. ]^ot given to wine, no striker, not greedy 

 of iilthy lucre, but patient, not a brawler, not covetous." 



The man who desireth to be an institute worker also desireth a 

 good work and all these things must he be. One idea has always 

 pleased my fancy and possibly appealed to my vanity ; namely, that 

 wherever you find the institute man who has proved himself and 

 has made good, almost without exception you find a man of worth 

 and character — one who, to quote a phrase of our old-time Director 

 Smith, is " a man of great probity." It is more than a circum- 

 stance that this is so. Xo institute director has insisted on adher- 

 ence to any creed or a certificate of character. At most they have 

 asked only for the " outward decency " which Mayor Gaynor says 

 is what he has asked of the policemen of New York. Always the 

 ostensiWe purpose has been to teach agriculture rather than morals, 

 yet the result has been the progressive and almost unconscious 

 elimination of the unworthy man. I do not attempt to explain 

 this, I only know it is so. There would seem to be something about 

 the work that very quietly but very surely shakes out of it the 



