94 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



economics we are turning from the ownership by one of the products of 

 all to the o\^iiership by all of the products of every one. In things intel- 

 lectual, we have taken off the iron band of church and king which 

 bound man's brain. A German monk opened the Book for all the 

 people and an hundred church spires took the place of a single cathe- 

 dral tower. A people laid obligation upon themselves to give schooling 

 to every child and the school house became an important fact upon the 

 Road to Tomorrow. 



Whatever the changes, the Heaven bends with benediction just as 

 near to earth this glorious day as when Wesley spoke or Carey suffered 

 exile or Jacob slept on stony pillow or the Gallilean Peasant walked 

 the highways of the Holy Land. And in the benediction of the bended 

 blue is enwrapped the same unchanged, unchanging duties, the chief 

 blessing which the Good Father gives to His sometimes reluctant child- 

 ren, blessing of opportunity for progress, for self-sacrifice, and for 

 service. The Road to Tomorrow lies in the sunlight, not the shadow, 

 and Tomorrow, please God, not Yesterday, is the world's golden age. 



What may we see On The Road to Tomorrow? Each man makes 

 his own horizon. The world is unlike to each different pair of eyes. 

 To some, dollars show the largest on the road-side ; to some, dinners. 

 Some look always downward at the clods and become like unto them. 

 Some lift their faces ever skyward and forget the weary way their 

 brother goes, some look with love and level eyes direct into the face of 

 every duty and seek to follow it with unfaltering feet. 



As we pause upon the Road to Tomorrow, as we go forward on the 

 road, what do we see most conspicuous objects worthy of our serious 

 thought ? 



First, the red barn of the farmstead gives challenge. Filled it has 

 been and is to ovei'flowing. Lean years are forgotten in the fat years 

 which have come. The output of the American farm aggregates annu- 

 ally eight billions of dollars, a sum that staggers the brain to compre- 

 hend — if at all it can be comprehended. Forests are felled and prairies 

 are plowed, deserts are watered and the barn, big with agricultural 

 wealth, is eveiywhere. Agriculture is fundamental, basic. The barn 

 stands for agriculture. It is the symbol of the increased farm product. 

 But the farm means more than the tearing down of sheds and the 

 building of barns. Its problems are larger than the fertility of the 

 soil, the conservation of material resources, than animal husbandry and 

 horticulture, than agronomy and pedigreed corn. Fundamental problem 

 in this first fact upon the Road to Tomorrow is how may the barn, 

 typifying the wealth wrung from the soil, be best employed for the en- 

 richment of the lives of the men and women who dwell upon the soil, 



