FIFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VI. 597 



in that field. The fact of the matter is, there is practically no end to the 

 improvement of farming in general. It is a great work. Agriculture ofters 

 a greater field for the exercise of intelligence than any other industry and 

 there is positively no exception to this statement. It is a work that will be 

 renumerative, it isa work that is philanthropic, it is a work that is elevating 

 in every sense of the word, but the major part of it must be left to the 

 members of the younger generation. They are the men and women who will 

 have to fight the great industrial battle of the future. We can lay down no 

 hard and fast rules for their guidance but we can instill into their minds the 

 necessity of thorough preparation for their tasks. 



Therefore, in conclusion, I charge you, father and mother, urge your 

 boy and your girl to acquire the best possible education to meet their re- 

 spective duties in the future. Young man and young woman, do not at- 

 tempt to go against the unvarying laws of nature, if you expect to pursue 

 the noblest calling on earth, the buiness of farming, then, because advance- 

 ment today lies along mental rather than physical lines, because you must 

 compete with the whole world, because educational standards are being 

 raised in all walks of life and because you wish to be the equal mentally, 

 socially and financially of everybody in your community and State, become 

 educated in your special line of work. Elevate your calling, dignify your 

 labor, become men and women of ability and power. 



HOW TO KEEP THE BOY AND THE GIRL ON THE FARM. 



Miss Vena Hawley , Laurens, Iowa, Before the Pocahontas County Farmers^ 



Institute . 



Before entering upon the discussion of the subject which has been 

 assigned to me, -may I oflEer a word, not so much of apology, as of explana- 

 tion. Whether the executive committee knew that I was one of a large family 

 of children, born and reared on a farm and therefore thought I was compe- 

 tent to speak from experience, or whether they thought a subject a little 

 more comprehensive and possibly in a lighter vein might add variety to the 

 entertainment provided here and hence selected me as an easy and un- 

 suspecting victim, I am not in a position to state. Seriously, however, I 

 believe they felt that the tendency of our young people to leave the farm was 

 really worth a thoughtful consideration in a meeting- of this kind, for it is a 

 discouraging fact that our young men and women are seeking careers in the 

 cities and we can say with the phropet of old, ' 'Behold our house is left un- 

 to us desolate." 



Believing as I do, that the ' 'hewers of wood" and ' 'drawers of water," 

 the men and women with "sun-trod faces and horn-gloved hands," whose 

 toil feeds the hungry and clothes the naked and upon whose backs rests the 

 burdens of the world— believing that these are the salt of the earth, the 

 subject takes on a new seriousness and a deeper significance; for, if the 



