74 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



(in the State of Missouri a much larger proportion than that),, and so 

 a University that serves the interests of all the people must certainly 

 think first of that 60 to 75 per cent of tlic iicople that are engaged in 

 agricultural pursuits. 



Furthermore, I am interested in agriculture from a solely educa- 

 tional standpoint, because it is the one great industry which is carried 

 on just around the home. The home is the very center of the industry 

 itself, and the home is essentially an educational institution. In our 

 big manufacturing industries in the cities the home life is remote from 

 the activities of the people, but we still in our agricultural life — and I 

 presume for a long time it will be true — live in the midst of our work. 

 It is not so true as it was a generation or so ago, and possibly not as 

 true on the large farms of this State as it was in the small farming com- 

 munity where I grew up myself. But as I think of the farm life I can 

 not separate it at all from the life of the home, so the agricultural in- 

 dustry is in its very nature an educative industry. It is not one which 

 is carried on so much for the production of dollars as it is one which 

 ministers from day to day — even from hour to hour — to the home com- 

 forts and the home life of the family. This constitutes, I think, the 

 greatest industry, even if it did not produce more wealth than industries 

 of the State. 



Furthermore, the conditions of life on the farm are such as to en- 

 courage, and in fact to demand, that initiative and that feeling of in- 

 dependence on which rests the very foundation of our democratic insti- 

 tutions ; and so an agricultural connnunity has a better opportunity than 

 any other sort of connnunity for the maintenance of democratic ideals 

 and democratic institutions. A university must be devoted to the raising 

 of the standard of intelligence so that every one whom it is serving will 

 be fit to guide his own life, to contribute to the success of democratic 

 institutions, and therefore the University becomes interested in having 

 the Agricultural College, which is training those who are to engage in the 

 calling upon whicli rests our food supply and fosters the very ideals 

 of our lives in this country. 



And I want to call your attention also to the fact that the business 

 of farming rests upon the laws of Nature, and that therefore there is 

 practically no limit to the improvement possible in it ; and the university 

 which is devoted to investigations in science and the improvement of 

 industries finds in the agricultural industry the greatest possible outlook 

 for the future because we can conceive of no limit to the effectiveness of 

 our work. The soil, of course, may in a measure become exhausted if 

 recklessly used, but properly husl)anded, with seientifie laws applied to 



