273 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



to self in daily contact with the world. The universe means more to us for 

 being able to think about it. 



We talk of the wonders of the world, and, in this day of rapid locomotion, 

 most of us go to see what we can of them. We talk of its being a good i]ivest- 

 ment to travel, — a wise way to spend our surplus means. No doubt that enjoy- 

 ment is of the purest, and we shall all rejoice at the opportunity to be so widely 

 given in this centennial of our nation, to "see the world." But a true educa- 

 tion enlarges one's vision both at home and abroad. If his travel is limited, he 

 finds almost a world in a drop of water, and the heart of a child is a never- 

 ending source of pleasure, and instruction, too, to one who can read it aright. 



But to some of us there is no satisfaction in mere amusement or mere instruc- 

 tion, and I admit that learning for such a reason must be simply a rather harm- 

 less dissipation. Tiie higher truth is, that each individual needs education to 

 make the most of himself. If you, my friend, believe that this life is but a 

 beginning of the days of the years of eternit}^, and expect to have any thing 

 w^orth remembering, so as to make the future and the present one life, or the 

 life of one being, you must gain that, however little it be, in the mental and 

 moral training of the present. Even if all of life seems to you only this brief 

 day, you can make it fullest and longest by such a training as I have called 

 education. I do not say happiest also, because I do not think that witli such a 

 faith one can be happy at all ; but I will say least miserable. 



I have said nothing of health as a result, because, if ever a man is tempted to 

 overdo, it is when his eyes are opened by intelligence to the world of work about 

 him, and many a grave of genius is witness to the strength of the temptation. 

 But in the same work and under the same strain tlie educated man has the 

 advantage over the uneducated. Dr. Kane, of delicate frame, in the hardships of 

 an arctic winter, was more enduring than the hardiest seaman, botli because he 

 knew better how to husband his strength, and because he had stronger reasons 

 for wanting to live. It was a well noted fact in our late war, that regiments com- 

 posed partially of educated men and students from the colleges suffered least 

 from camp diseases, and endured best the long forced marches. The reasons 

 here were the same as in Dr. Kane's case, with the added one, that their culture 

 gave tliem something to think of to drive away home-sickness, the first cause of 

 many disorders. 



Of education as a means of individual wealth, you might rightly expect a 

 word, though many of us are sadly conscious that money does not stay better, 

 if it is sure to gather as well, where the wants outgrov/ the means. Such dis- 

 cussion may, however, more naturally come under the next question, " AVho can 

 Afford it?" and I pause to consider but one more advantage to selfish considera- 

 tion, and that is what is usually expressed in the word "position." 



Positions of usefulness have been already noted as, to an extraordinary extent, 

 gained by the educated ; but the same fact holds true of the positions looked 

 upon as the expression of fame, or the crowning of success in life. 



Here I may quote again from statistics given by President Hays. He finds 

 that about one boy in every 140 goes to college for either a full or a partial 

 course of study ; but, supposing this ratio may make no allowance for natural 

 brightness of "the educated, he drops forty-six for stupidity, "and surely," he 

 says, "the remaining hundred will average as good natural talents as those who 

 go to college." In tlie last congress there were three hundred and two repre- 

 sentatives and seventy-three senators, of whom "there ought, if an education is 

 of no special advantage, to be three college graduates in the house and one in 



