FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 173 



A TLEA FOR THE EDUCATION OF THE FARMER'S CHH.DREN. 



PROF. L. A. SNYDAM, Richmond, at MACOMB COUNTY Institute, Richmond. 



History tells me that all the great reforms have been made by the common peo- 

 ple. 



Oil the fields of Marathon and Thermopylae, it \yas the hardy, rugsed mountain- 

 •eers who kept back the hosts of Persia and preserved the independence of Greece. 

 It was the stern, heroic and virtuons character of the Romans that enabled them to 

 carry their coiiquerinff arms over nearly all the then knoAvn world, and our 

 political institutions of today are founded in the laws which they established for 

 the p:overnment of tliat vast empire. The teuton herdsmen and peasants, over- 

 running Europe, added to the Roman idea of law their love of individual liberty, 

 5ind the modern nations of France, Germany and England sprang into being. When 

 the Barons of England were struggling for the mastery, it was the common people 

 who came to the aid of the king, and we have a united England, and a little later it 

 was the common people who wrested the authority from cruel and unjust kings 

 nnd placed it in their own house of commons, and we have the free England of to- 

 <lay. It was the common people of America that made the Declaration of '76 pos- 

 sible. 



Thus we see that all the great reforms and great movements of the past have 

 been made by the common people. And the historical signliicance of those reforms 

 is just in proportion that the reformers were educated and advanced. Where the 

 common people of a nation are educated, there we find a nation free and prosper- 

 ous, as France, Germany, England and the United States. The nations of China, 

 Japan, Russia and Spain are despotic just in the proportion that the people are 

 ignorant. The safety and greatness of a nation depend upon the education of the 

 masses, and just so far as the masses become enlightened, just so far will that 

 nation become prosperous and great. 



The education of our childi-en is not a privilege; it is a duty, and a duty to our 

 ancestors and to tlie State, and when vre say a duty to the State we mean a duty 

 to the people of the State— to ourselves— our posterity. For the educational ad- 

 vantages we enjoy we are indebted to our ancestors of the past— the common people. 

 Let us sustain their work and, if possible, build grander, nobler structures, so that 

 our children may be proud of their ancestors as we have been proud of ours, and 

 the only way we can do this is to support the schools, and to offer every induce- 

 ment to our children to gain an education— an education that will better enable 

 them to meet the responsibilities' of life. 



We have seen that the reforms of the past have been made by those who toil. 

 And may we not say that in the future the safety of our institutions will depend 

 upon the education of the toilers? If this be so, it is our duty to educate our chil- 

 dren, and especially the farmer's children, as they constitute a large majority of 

 those Avho toil. And further, because the farmer's children have a strength of 

 •character and power of overcoming difficulties not possessed by any other class of 

 children. I do not expect tliat all farmers' boys will enter the professions, but we 

 want educated boys on the farm. We want farmers who can think for themselves 

 and not allow scheming politicians to think for them. And till this is done the 

 farmer can look for no betterment of his condition. 



I believe that the education of the farmer will settle the great political problems 

 of today. Your ancestors have entrusted to you this republic and those institutions 

 which they prized so dearly. I know you will be true to that trust and that in the 

 future greater reforms and grander achievements will be accomplished by the 

 educated sons of toil. 



THE WIFE'S SHARE IX THE OWNERSIHI' OF THE HOME. 



MRS. ELLi:y UAKL,ETO.V, Onekema, at WOMEN'S SECTION. MANISTEE COUNTY 



Institute, Beai- Lake. 



The life of woman is instinctively the home life; aAvay from it she lives a half 

 starved existence. As a child she plays keep a home, as a girl she dreams of a 

 liome of lier own. as a young woman she enters one. The purest thought and 



