FARMEES' I]SrSTITUTES. 827 



casionally the members give entertainments of various liinds and each one 

 is privileged to invite friends. The men are included in these entertain- 

 ments, and withal the society has proved an important factor in uniting 

 and uplifting the neighborhood. These are only examples of what might 

 be done and yet attend faithfully to household duties. 



The lives of farm women must necessarily be many-sided, but we 

 must not become exclusively domestic else we become commonplace. Do 

 not grow only in a single direction, but be a "friend of your friends, a 

 housekeeper and a member of society." In a spirit of good fellowship 

 let us be more sociable. Get acquainted, strengthen personal friendships, 

 gain other friends and make the farm life ideal, as it should be, for— 



"Life is the mirror of king and slave, 

 'Tis just what j'ou are and do, 

 Give to the world the best that you have 

 And the best will come back to you." 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 



EAKLE C. SALISBURY, ORLAND, IND. 



[Read before tlie Steuben County Farmers' Institute.] 



I believe all present appreciate the value of an education. To you 

 who are skeptical upon the point, I need but point you to the great men 

 of our country, men who reaUy serve their fellow men, and not those who 

 amass fortunes by niggardliness. How many of our presidents were not 

 graduates of colleges? How many of the Senators or Cabinet officers 

 are not trained men? Very few indeed, and then when you come to con- 

 sider what a small proportion are educated then you will realize how 

 many more chances a college man has for positions of trust and honor. 

 A book entitled "Who's Who in America" gives an exhaustive treatise 

 of the value of education, the editors of which induced ten thousand of 

 noted men in every line of reputable endeavor to report their education. 

 They didn't find an uneducated man and only twenty-four were self- 

 taught. A boy with a common school education had in round numbers 

 one chance in nine thousand to become noted; one with a high school 

 education had one chance in four hundred, while one with a college train- 

 ing had one chance in forty. 



How do these people get their education, their training? It is got- 

 ten by learning facts and the relation which they bear to each other, 

 whether they be that of the dead languages, mathematics, nature study 

 or the details of some trade or profession. Since it is the learning of 

 facts that produces this effect, why can not useful facts give the desired 

 effect as well as the impractical, uninteresting stuff which is taught in 



