CHAPTER XIV 

 THE SOCIAL SIDE OF THE FARM QUESTION 



There is a proverb in Grange circles which 

 expresses also the fundamental aim of all agri- 

 cultural education — "The farmer is of more 

 consequence than the farm and should be first 

 improved. " The first term in all agricultural 

 prosperity is the man behind the plow. Im- 

 proved agriculture is a matter of fertile brain 

 rather than of fertile field. Mind culture must 

 precede soil culture. 



But if the improved man is the first term in 

 improved agriculture, if he is the effective cause 

 of rural progress, he is also the last term and the 

 choice product of genuine agricultural advance- 

 ment. We may paraphrase the sordid, "raise 

 more corn to feed more hogs to buy more land 

 to raise more corn, etc.," into the divine, "train 

 better farmers to make better farming to grow 

 better farmers, etc." We want trained men 

 that we may have an advancing agricultural art, 

 that we may make every agricultural acre render 

 its maximum. The improved acre, however, 

 must yield not only corn but civilization, not 



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