No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 275 



This theory nover had a foundation at all. Although we must 

 coufess that a few of this iutelligeut geueiation deuounce the farmer 

 boy or girl. It was a most wretched thing to throw at a boy that 

 he was branded for life as a nobody, because he happened to be the 

 son of a farmer. 



Let us see what farmer boys have done for the world and for them- 

 selves. Here is a boy born of very poor parents on a farm back in 

 the wilderness. If ever fate seemed against any one it did against 

 this boy. But he had the will to do great things and all alone he 

 set out. Working on the farm in the summer and winter, going 

 to school in the spring and by teaching a term or two of the district 

 school he worked himself through a three years' course at the 

 academy. Then he entered a newspaper oflice and began setting 

 type. At first he received simply his board. Soon he proved more 

 valuable to his employer and was moved to the reporters desk. 

 From that point he went on rapidly. A few years later he occupied 

 t!he chair of the editor of one of the leading papers of the county. 

 After he represented his township for five years on the board of 

 supervisors, the law making body of the county, he was promoted 

 to the State Legislature, filling all these positions with honor to 

 himself and to the satisfaction of his constituents. But he did not 

 stop hQre. He returned to the county, bought a farm and converted 

 it into an ideal country home, where he could live in peace and still 

 be one of the leading citizens of the State. Can any one say that, 

 this farmer boy has proven to be a failure? This is one of the thous- 

 ands of successful farmer boys. 



Abraham Lincoln, that great, whole-souled man, was one of our 

 very poorest farmer boys. What a noble character to place before 

 our children of to-day. "Charity in every one of its beautiful mean- 

 ings pervaded him; not only in the moral sense of all pervading love, 

 but in the intellectual sense of comprehending sympathy was charity 

 his guiding light." He w^as called to fill the most responsible gift 

 of the people, and he did his duty faithfully and w^ell. 



In the Legislature of the State of New York in 1898, sixteen 

 farmers sat as law-makers, and they represented the very salt of 

 that body. Their hands were free from the touch of corruption and 

 their sound, good judgment caused them to be sought by those who 

 might have been supposed to be far higher in the social scale. 



There will be more farmers in public life when our people come 

 more fully to appreciate their sterling worth. Is it worth while for 

 a farmer boy to get an education? Forever, yes. The best farmer 

 is he who has the best all-round education. For such men the world 

 is longing. The farmer of the twentieth century must and should 

 know something about all kinds of business. He will when he finds 

 of what incalculable value it will be to him to possess such knowl- 



