Fanners' Week in Agricultural College. 83 



believe that this feeling is going to be of value, that it is going to help 

 to have better horses, and better cows, and better corn. The boys get 

 ideas about alfalfa, never thought of before, and before long that home 

 farm is trying an experiment in alfalfa growing. There is no limit to 

 the good that will be accomplished in this way; I believe in giving 

 every farmer's boy and every farmer's girl throughout this State and 

 every state in the Union, a good education, the best education, an edu- 

 cation for effective life work. AVhen we have provided that, we have 

 provided something that wnll be of benefit to those boys and girls all 

 through their lives, and, better than that, they will be of benefit to their 

 friends and neighbors, and all with whom they come in contact. I be- 

 lieve in the farmer's boy and the farmer's girl. They are not always 

 so pert and ''smart alecky" as some city boys. I believe in any boy, 

 but I pity the city boy who has only the pavement and the tall build- 

 ings to look at. Compare his life with that of the farmer boy who has 

 the fields, the sky, the farm animals and the wild animals, the forests 

 and the streams, and always on the farm a chance to work. Some peo- 

 ple think that is a hardship, but it is the best thing for a boy — to have 

 something to do and most of the time to be doing something. It helps 

 prepare him for life. Is it not fair play to give that farmer boy as 

 good an education as that city boy? I heard a story of a city boy who 

 one day hired a livery team and took his best girl out for a drive. They 

 drove along by a corn field in which there w' as a country boy — a boy with 

 freckles on his face, full of life — driving the mules along plowing corn, 

 and he came to the fence about the time Smart Aleck came driving 

 along. Smart Aleck thought he would have a little fun with the Rube, 

 so he called out, "Say, your corn looks a little yellow, don't it?" and 

 the country boy answered, "Yas, we planted yellow corn." Smart 

 Aleck said again, "You won't have more than half a crop, will you?" 

 "No, we have half and the owTier has half." Then Smart Aleck was 

 mad and called out, "Say, there isn't much difference between you and 

 a fool, is there?" And the country boy answered, "No, only the fence." 

 The country boy is not a fool, and sometimes the city boy finds it out. 

 If we farmers do our duty the time is coming when these farm boys 

 and girls will get a good education. It means that in the country dis- 

 tricts M'C shall have to spend more money in salaries to good teachers. 

 I hope we may be able to educate the farmers up to the idea that it 

 pays to educate these boys. I believe that we are justified in calling for 

 Federal aid, for State aid, for county aid for our public schools, and 

 then we can make up the rest of what is necessary in local taxes. There 

 are reasons for this other than agricultural. Most of the successful 

 business men of the cities were born on the farm. If the country is to 



