70 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



opportunity to get up on his feet and demand an answer to 

 some question that has troubled him in his work. To my » 

 mind that is the most useful kind of an institute. Where the 

 speaker so interests his audience as to cause them to ask ques- 

 tions freely, it is of the highest value and interest. Now, 

 the man who needs the help of an institute is not, and never 

 will be, the prosperous quick-brained farmer who has been 

 taught to think and to act for himself. I believe that fact, 

 and every year that I live convinces me more and more that 

 that fact is true. I can stand here and look into your faces 

 today and I see that probably ninety-five per cent, of you do 

 not need the farmers' institute. You have gotten your educa- 

 tion in other ways. It is the man outside, the man back 

 on the little farms, back on the hillsides, the hopeless, dis- 

 couraged man, who needs this thing carried to him, and you 

 men who have had the advantage of better educational facili- 

 ties, it is your duty to go out into the byways where the lame 

 and the halt and the blind of farming are helplessly waiting 

 for you to compel them to come in. If they will not come in 

 any other way, bring them in; make them come in. They 

 must have this education if they are to be uplifted. I regret 

 to say that the institute in most states has not been run in the 

 interest of this class of farmers. They have too often been 

 run in the interest of the class which does not have so great a 

 need for them. They are the men who are best able to take 

 care of themselves, and they ever have been able to draw the 

 institute in their direction, and away from the common every- 

 day farmer who needs it the most. I claim that ninety-five 

 per cent, of the energies of the institute speaker and manager 

 should be devoted to the work of getting hold of the men who 

 at present never go to these meetings. The up-to-date 

 farmers are not the men to look out for. They are able to 

 take care of themselves. They know where to get and how to 

 get their agricultural information and education, and they have 

 been able to get it. But wherever I go I find it is the tend- 



