726 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



incentive to work. I would suggest that we have a membership roll for 

 the women and have an annual membership fee and all competitors for 

 prizes to be paid up members, and in this way we will have what money 

 we need and not be under the necessity of some one going around to 

 solicit friends. We like to be a little independent. 



Ella Wheeler Wilcox wrote a little poem on leaning and lifting my sis- 

 ters. Which are you, a leaner or lifter? Let us encourage every one who 

 is willing to make an effort to either improve themselves or help lift up 

 some one else and not be contented with ourselves until we have done all 

 we can. I do not recommend this way for our institute alone, but in our 

 church work, our homes, our schools or wherever anything can be made 

 better, so that it will bear the test of criticism, but let the critic use kind- 

 ness, not doing anything that would wound. We may get valuable sug- 

 gestions and helps from others, yet it is your mind, your brains, your 

 efforts, the right application of your knowledge, that will bring you true 

 success. And with intelligent co-operation with the many that are ad- 

 vancing new and profitable ideas we may in a measure be assured of a 

 reward. This institute work is a great and good work and far reaching 

 in its influence. It has been said that the sliding along the line of least 

 resistance will end up in oblivion. Are we going to look for the easiest 

 places to fill or shall we take hold of any and everything that is in reason 

 that comes our way and stay by it until success perches on our banner. 

 Let us work with all earnestness to improve our surroundings, help build 

 up our homes, our schools, our churches, in fact, our community and leave 

 a good imprint on our future institutes. 



With the ample amount of material at command and a systematic ar- 

 rangement of subjects for discussion a two or three days' institute can 

 be held both with pleasure and profit. 



"LIFT WHERE YOU STAND." 



Mrs. A. P. Ines, Algona, Iowa, Before Kosstith County Farmers' Institute. 



Lord Macauley has said, "A people that takes no pride in the noble 

 achievements of their ancestors will never achieve anything worthy to be 

 remembered by remote generations." A record of bare facts by them- 

 selves does not constitute history. Such a record may be of value, but to 

 attain the dignity of history we must have social events and evolution de- 

 tailed with considerable fullness, and the growth of society from one 

 phase to another, distinctly traced and recorded. We only know that this 

 is a progressive age by comparing it with the past. And to whom can we 

 give the credit for the up-to-date condition of things? Surely not to the 

 younger generation of which the young man is a member. He may yet 

 place his shoulder to the wheel of progress and a half century hence he, 

 too, may be able to boast that he had helped to move the world along. 

 History teaches everything, even the great future. To study it is to fa- 

 miliarize ourselves with the whole realm of art, philosophy, science and 

 biography. Never before have events moved more rapidly than they are 

 moving today. We are making history as rapidly as ever before. In the 



