EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART HI 157 



Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: As I recall It, I spoke to practically 

 this same crowd yesterday. I don't know what the chairman has against 

 you that he should inflict me upon you again. It is a pleasure, of course, 

 to meet with this organization. You are men who are willing to take a 

 chance, and I suppose that is the reason you come in spite of the pro- 

 gram. Running a fair, working a year for a week's entertainment, going 

 up against the weather, as you have to, and smiling even though it Is 

 against you; going down in your pocket to make up the deficit, if you have 

 to, surely ought to make brave men of you. 



The state and county fairs, of course, are educational institutions. I 

 think as yet our people do not thoroughly understand that, but they will 

 learn to understand it, and the better they understand it the more interest 

 is going to be taken in the fair and the more money you are going to 

 receive as support from the state. I am a thorough believer in the home 

 organization of the county fair, or district fair, which ever you are 

 pleased to call it. My experience in state work so far has demonstrated 

 to my mind that it does not pay to concentrate all of your energies in a 

 state organization. The state organization is necessary, is vitally im- 

 portant if you expect to make out of these entertainments what they 

 really ought to be for the state. In other words, we are coming to a place 

 in this country where we have got to go to the people with these things, 

 rather than expect the people to go" very far to thes;e institutions. 



I tave the same feature in mind with reference to education. I be- 

 lieve that the extension work of the Agricultural College accomplishes far 

 more than we realize. That work which we take out to the public — and 

 I want to see the time come when more of it is done. I think we ought 

 to send the professor to the people rather than asking the few to go to the 

 professor. Of course, we could not lay any charge against the Dean, 

 because he goes, arid it is right that he should. The message should be 

 carried out to the people where they live, through the medium of the 

 school, and it is surprising how much can be accomplished in a very 

 short time in a community by a short course where the people are them- 

 selves interested. 



Now, I am not going to take your time this afternoon to talk along that 

 line to you, because there isn't anything I can tell you that you don't 

 already know. The most I can do is to encourage you in the work you are 

 doing and commend you for it. I know when you have gone through a 

 campaign to get a fair started, get the people interested, and pull it off, 

 you are pretty tired, and then when you look back over it you will probably 

 say: "That represents a lot of hard work, and I wonder whether the 

 people appreciate it?" and in addition to your other troubles the ex- 

 chequer is probably pretty thin. But you get together at one of these 

 meetings and talk things over, become enthusiastic over the possibilities 

 of success and start again at another, and the best encouragement I can 

 give you today is that you should go back and make the next year better 

 than the past one. 



The opportunities here in Iowa are unlimited. We have only just 

 touched the surface — the mine is there ready to be opened up, and it will 

 produce. Some of you men have spent your life, almost, in this line of 

 work. If you go into communities where they don't have fairs, you will 



