1905.] AGRICULTURE IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 21/ 



every one of us, and more or less of those who are connected 

 with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules 

 of the game in order that we may play our part with credit in 

 that far more difficult and complicated game than chess, which 

 has been played for untold ages — the great game of life — 

 every man and woman of us being one of the two players in a 

 game of his own. The chess board is the world. The pieces 

 are the facts of the universe, and the rules of the game are what 

 we call the laws of nature. The Player on the other side is 

 hidden from us, but he is one that is playing his game in a 

 manner that is always fair and just, but we also know to our 

 cost that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest 

 allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well the high- 

 est stakes are paid with that sort of generosity with which the 

 strong deal out to the strong, and the one who plays ill is 

 checkmated ; without haste, but without remorse. The prin- 

 ciple found here stands out to the open-minded person in 

 large, immensely large, bold type. Life is no joke. It is a 

 constant fight. We go up to victory or down to defeat, de- 

 pending on the moves we make. The moves we make depend 

 upon our knowledge of the game. It, therefore, becomes a 

 question of equipment. The law of the survival of the fittest 

 hangs over your head and mine. This is the theory of the 

 public school, to equip for life, that is, to make the people know 

 how to play the game, and not to teach them how to shun the 

 game. Their purpose is not to put the mantle of protection 

 around a man so that nothing can get to him. That is not the 

 principle. Animals that do that go to the wall quicker than 

 any other. The great object and the purpose of education is 

 to make a man able to stand in the firing line. 



Back in the middle ages the black death spread over the 

 continent of Europe, decimating the ranks of the people to the 

 extent of twenty-five millions in a single year. Imagination 

 fails to picture the dread, darkness, and despair which such a 

 pestilence creates. Such a thing could not happen today, be- 

 cause the people are prepared to meet such great emergencies. 

 Now there are two phases of this equipment about which I 

 wish to speak, and with these two phases we are concerned in 

 the public schools, as well as with many others, of course. 

 The first one is this: To form the habit of working; to fall 

 in love and be irretrievably lost in love with your work. I 



