No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 615 



lift a man from the lowest ignorance and poverty in which nature 

 may have placed him at birth. Neither can we say physical infirmi- 

 ties are a bar to learning. Homer and Milton were blind. Helen 

 Keller, who recently finished a four years' eollege course at'Radclifie, 

 one of the most eomplete of ladies' colleges, was born blind, deaf 

 and speechless, but nothing daunted by these infirmities, she pressed 

 forward to the goal, her ambition and graduated well up in her 

 class, leaving college mistress of five languages. The value of Miss 

 Keller's education devoted to the noble purpose of instructing those 

 who have been as unfortunate at birth as she, can never be measured 

 in this life. 



The young man must understand that in college or in any institu- 

 tion of learning that the cultivation of the mind is the absolute 

 demand of the day and hour. To-day the world will only have high 

 grade ability to undertake her enterprises to guide her institutions, 

 to run her machinery, to be leaders of her multitudinous affairs. 

 Money may have power, birth and blood may have power, but brain 

 is mightier than all. An education is the greatest of all wealth. 

 He who secures it has something which the world cannot take 

 away from him. Stocks and bonds may rise and fall but an educa- 

 tion is alway above par. 



Not long ago Booker T. Washington, undoubtedly the best edu- 

 cated negro in the world, a man wfiom President Roosevelt deemed 

 worthy to dine with him at the White House, sent out eleven ques- 

 tions relative to the education of the negro. These questions were 

 sent to representative white men of the South, who were able to 

 speak from observations in their, own communities. Among some 

 of the questions were the following: (a) Has education made the 

 negro a more useful citizen? (b) Has education improved his 

 morals? (c) Does crime grow less as education increases? (d) Has 

 education made him mure economical? Dr. Washington received 

 an average of lUb' answers favorable to the education of the negro, 

 13 unfavorable, while an average of 17 failed to answer. The ratio 

 as you can see, was 8 to 1 in favor of education. Then can we not 

 logically conclude that the solution of the race problem lies in the 

 education of the negro coupled with Christianity? By the dissem- 

 ination of growth, intelligence, bitterness of sectionalism and rancor 

 of sectarianism is rapidly disappearing and a better citizenship 

 and a more healthy and robust nationality is asserting its presence 

 and influence in the world. Japan, the most enlightened of the 

 far Eastern countries, has adopted the plan of the American public 

 school system. Formerly the wise men came from the East, but 

 to-day the Orient in search of wisdom has turned her face westward 

 and to-day American genius and intelligence are on their first proud 

 march around the world. The minds that are to control the next 

 quarter of a century, settle all the disputes which may arise, meet 

 all the issues which may present .themselves and give a future to 

 this republic are in the colleges, academies, public schools, in the 

 factories and on the farm. To form these minds aright is the deli- 

 cate but responsible task of the fireside and institutions of learn- 

 ing. Sound learning means safety to the child, to the city, to the 

 nation. The institution which stands for sound learning is not 

 simply an ornament, but a power which exerts a mighty influence 

 for the advancement of mankind. To make men for the hour is the 



