SUMMER MEETING. 71 



their children and are in less danger of misguiding them and being 

 disappointed. Thousands of our retired farmers, abundantly able, see 

 so little of this grand country. 



It may be a question of importance to ask our multiplied societies 

 of reform, "What can you do toward helping the retired farmers to 

 take their outings with profit to all concerned, and with such expense 

 as is suited to their means ?" Would it be out of the way to suggest, in 

 our State, the St. Louis and K^insas City Expositions and the State 

 Horticultural, Dairy and Poultry Associations as places where acquaint- 

 ance with the most progressive minds can be made and the best ideas 

 of our growth acquired ? The Columbian Exposition will be one of 

 great importance. 



If they will attend these places, on returning home they will lend 

 more cheerfully their encouragement and approval, and perhaps give 

 of their substance toward enterprises essential to the needed growth 

 and development of the resources which a people may possess. 



Because they have seen what others do and how they do it, what 

 others think and why, then they are willing to allow matters at home 

 to be conducted in a more progressive, modern and intelligent way. 

 This is necessary to the growth of society in any town. 



FACTOR THE SECOND. 



I will now speak of the children. To speak of them is to touch 

 a subject of profound interest to every true American father and 

 mother. To speak of them is to speak of the pride of the nation and 

 the hope of the future. To them will be handed down the glory or 

 the shame of our republic. If from among the children of the far- 

 mers and mechanics and laboring classes of our villages there will not 

 be raised up such as will be in sympathy, and will know how to plead 

 the cause of the poor, speak honorably of labor, and give dignity to 

 that class of mankind that numbers four-tifths of all the people on the 

 globe, what will be the condition of future generations ? Therefore, 

 I bespeak for them, especially in the country villages, high schools and 

 academies and far better educational advantages. Our school-rooms 

 are too barren of libraries, and organs, and singing books. Our teach- 

 ers educated to the use of these things do not know how to get along 

 successfully without them. I have not been in a Sunday-school room 

 for 10 years that did not have an organ. Why not have them in our 

 day schools ? 



But our neighborhood has founded a library, and our children are 

 delighted with it. This is necessary, for they must go where we have 

 never been; they must do what we have never done; they must have 

 the thoughts and experience of the world to guide them. 



