1902.] DISCUSSION. 65 



It has occurred to my mind that sometimes our institute 

 managers make a mistake in racing after what I may call very 

 prosperous men to come to the institute. I do not believe 

 that the exceedingly prosperous man, one of those men in a 

 million, one of those men who by strong natural ability and 

 by force of will have pushed themselves head and shoulders 

 above the crowd — I do not believe, my friends, that those 

 men are the best farmers' institute workers. I believe they 

 are for the large gatherings. Some of them are ideal speak- 

 ers, but for getting down close to the masses, down to the 

 people, down to the hopeless, discouraged man back on the 

 farm, there is too wide a jump. There is too great a gap be- 

 tween them. That is the class that our farmers' institutes 

 ought to be designed to reach, and the man who can come to 

 them with an inspiring story of improvement is, in my judg- 

 ment, a far better farmers' institute speaker than the exceed- 

 ingly prosperous man, who stands on a pedestal, and who, 

 whether rightly or wrongly, justly or unjustly, is separated 

 from his audience by a certain feeling, by a gap which mili- 

 tates against his usefulness as a speaker. The speaker should 

 be a man who should be able to talk about my work, my farm, 

 or my wife's farm, my cow, and my profits, and who should 

 know these things from actual practical experience and every- 

 day contact with them. You want a man who is able to talk 

 about " my success " or about " my failure " in a certain Hne, 

 and who can talk it so that they will understand just what that 

 success was, and how it was attained, or just what that failure 

 was, and how it came about. He wants to be able to talk it 

 so the common farmer will understand him. 



Then, too, the speaker ought to be known in his neighbor- 

 hood as a good farmer. What a mistake it is for a man to 

 go before an audience of farmers and inspire them, and build 

 them up in spirits with a wonderful story of his success, and 

 invite them to come and see him, and then some day, when 

 one of those men who have listened to him takes it into his 

 Agr. — 5 



