1905.] INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS, IQ 



There must be something, it seems to me, about this business 

 of farming, that is uphfting, pure, noble, and good, because I 

 find that wherever a boy has been bred upon a farm, no matter 

 what position in hfe he afterwards occupies, no matter how 

 weahhy he may become, no matter what his afhhations and 

 associations and occupation may be, he always reverts, with a 

 sort of feeling akin to homesickness, to his early life spent upon 

 the farm ; and today you will find in the metropolis of our coun- 

 try, down in New York, in every great railroad corporation, 

 in every great banking institution, in every great law office, in 

 every great doctor's office, a boy who in his leisure moments 

 is constantly referring, with almost inexpressible longing, to 

 the days he spent upon the farm. And I have often thought 

 that whatever other assets these men may acquire in their dis- 

 tinguished careers, they feel that there is one asset which they 

 had as farmer boys which has been of very much more impor- 

 tance to them than most anything else, and that is, the asset 

 of strong bodies and the vigor which comes from the strong, 

 manly life that they lived in the open in their boyhood days. 

 I remember when I was a boy in the high school that there 

 was a poem published which appealed to the whole country 

 and created a great sensation. It was a poem by a well-known 

 New England poet, and it was entitled " Snow-bound." You 

 all remember it. It was a story of a country farm, a New 

 England farm, and the poem told the story of the incidents that 

 happened on that farm on a single winter's day. It depicted 

 a very, very tremendous snow storm, a snow storm that we do 

 not have in these days, and depicted the howling winds and the 

 drifting snow. It depicted the scene within the farmhouse 

 and the family gathered there waiting for the storm to abate. 

 It depicted the work of the men and boys after the storm had 

 ceased, and it depicted the gathering around a great fireplace 

 in the farmhouse in the evening, and showed completely the 

 home life of the country boy (Whittier), when he was em- 

 ployed upon his father's farm. I remember how that poem 



