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liave given me two illustrations, which I think cover the 

 point. The children were playing on the lawn. They had 

 been eating some little cakes, and wanted to save some it 

 them over for another day. As wise as was Joseph of old in 

 providing for the lean years of famine, the cakes were 

 wrapped in paper, and a pile of sand put over them. A hen 

 came, scratched this sand away, and made away with the 

 cakes, greatly to the disgust of the children. They heard a 

 mason tell that sand and cement mixed together would hold 

 anything, so the next day they got a handful of dry cement, 

 mixed it with the sand, and again made a pile over the lit- 

 tle cakes, and again the hen came and scratched it away 

 easier than before, for if you throw the fine cement into the 

 air, it will blow away as dust. Then someone told the chil- 

 dren that water should be added, but they had begun to lose 

 their faith in such things, for here were sand, cement and 

 water, three of the most unstaple things when used alone 

 that man could think of. Yet, they went ahead, mixed the 

 sand, cement and the water, and made a pile of what they 

 called dough over their little cakes. Then there was a 

 change, for that dough hardened ; the hen came again, but 

 this time she scratched the nails off her toes and was baffled. 

 The next day the children had to use a hammer to break 

 down the protection and get at their cakes. Here is the 

 great vital lesson of co-operation. The sand, the cement 

 and the water, each of itself, or two of them together, had no 

 power of protection ; a more futile or useless protector would 

 be hard to conceive of. Yet when they were put together 

 and molded into form, a sledge hammer was required to 

 break them down. Sometimes farmers think of the mighty 

 interests which are arrayed against them, and they become 

 discouraged, for what can individual farmers do against 

 such mighty power? They can do nothing, so long as they 

 permit themselves to represent the sand, the cement or 

 the water alone, but put them together in number reprs- 

 senting the sand, the power and thought representing the 

 cement, and the ambition and brotherly feeling represent- 

 ing the water, and they form a bond which could not be 

 broken. That is the first lesson we have learned from chil- 

 dren. 



Again, my own children formed a little farm organiza- 

 tion. There was four of them, my daughter was eleetei 

 Secretary, one of the boys Vice President, the other boy 

 President, and the other girl treasurer. I gave them a piece 



