196 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



profitable husbandry; while those which have 

 laid greater stress on classroom work than on 

 farm demonstration have fallen behind. Farming 

 in the classroom is too much like farming in the 

 city it lacks the flavor of the soil. Not that I 

 prize scientific teaching less but proofs in the fields 

 and barns more. An agricultural college where 

 the farm is left out is like an old mowing-machine 

 that a farmer was tinkering by the roadside fence. 

 When a. chauffeur stopped his automobile near by, 

 the farmer asked " What kind of a machine is 

 that?" "An automobile," the chauffeur replied, 

 " What kind of machine is yours? " "Ought-to- 

 mow-gra.ss, but it won't," said the farmer. 



The surprising thing about the back-to-the-farm 

 movement is, that it is fostered largely by city men. 

 The College President now talks flowingly and 

 learnedly about the " educational " farm* about 

 the dignity and nobility and independence of farm 

 life, and even tells the rising generation how he 

 used to shear sheep, mow grass and do other farm 

 stunts all this to stiffen the student's vertebrae. 

 And the Professors of Greek listen approvingly 

 and exclaim, " Me too ! " They have not the sin- 

 cerity or the courage to admit that farming is in 

 fact a strenuous occupation and that they them- 

 selves dodged it and chose the direction of soft 



