SEVENTH ANNIIAL YEAR BOOK-PART X. 551 



Agricultural instruction has had to pass through its evolutionary 

 period, as have all other things. They formerly sought to gain all in- 

 struction from hooks alone. Today they study the living cell, the plant, 

 the animal, and the soil itself, and from books learn the laws which gov- 

 ern the constitution, the make-up, and development of these, the farmers' 

 capital. I would emphasize this fact. Agricultural instruction of today is 

 practicable. 



Things are now being thought out before being done. Thought is your 

 skilled engineer which directs your course. 



"If your brain does not sweat you will have but little bread," for 

 says the Bible, "By the sweat of your brow you shall earn your bread." 

 The world is waiting for young men who know how, not only is this de- 

 cidedly true in agricultural lines, but in the great industries as well, 

 the trained mind is given preference. 



1 surmise that there are some in this audience who have been won- 

 dering what salary a graduate of an agricultural college could command. 

 A servant girl applying for a position first asked what she might expect 

 as compensation for her services. The mistress answered, "I will pay you 

 whatever j-ou are worth." "I never worked for so little as that in my life; 

 good day, mum." The college man is willing to start with what he is 

 ivorth. feeling confident that he can "make good." Two-thirds of the boys 

 go back to the farms and are making a success of their work. Many more 

 would gladly go back, had they a farm to which to return. I know of 

 but few of my classmates who come under the latter heading, — one is in 

 Washington, D. C, at a salary of $1,200, another is associate editor of the 

 "Homestead," and a third has charge of a one thousand five hundred acre 

 ranch in Dakota. I know of twenty-four graduates who have left the 

 college since 1901, who are receiving an average salary of over one thou- 

 sand five hundred dollars a year. However, "they are not the most suc- 

 cessful in life who would keep the money returns for ever more always 

 before them. The most satisfactory reward is that of a conscience telling 

 us that we have made the most of our opportunity and have done the 

 best we could with the talent entrusted to our care, that we have made the 

 world better for having lived in it." 



"ifarmers as a class are apt to look only on what appears to them 

 to be the practical side of the affairs of life and not to live in air castles 

 or set up Ideals in their minds to strive to attain yet all the advancement 

 that has been made was conceived in the mind long before its realiza- 

 tion. 



"As long as the farmer was satisfied with his wooden plow there was 

 no hope for improvement, but when the possibility of something better 

 dawned upon his mind an improved implement took its place." 



The second fact, which, it would seem to me should be strongly em- 

 phasized, is that one's ideals of life are raised to the point where he will 

 strive. The greatest improvement comes in men who strive. Great 

 achievements come as the result of effort. 



"Education is to hnow for the sake of living, not to live for the sake 

 of knowing. Science has done more than help the farmer to material 

 gain. It opens up to him a world of things round about. He compre- 

 hends in the growing plant and the busy animal life an endless number of 



