SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 243 



needed, in order to work it out in a fairly satisfactory manner. 

 It should appeal to all our citizens. I am glad that societies have 

 already been formed to promote industrial education, and that 

 their membership includes manufacturers and leaders of labor 

 unions, educators and publicists, men of all conditions who are 

 interested in education and in industry. It is such co-operation 

 that offers most hope for a satisfactory solution of the question 

 as to what is the best form of industrial school, as to the means 

 by which it may be articulated with the public-school system, 

 and as to the way to secure for the boys trained therein the 

 opportunity to acquire in the industries the practical skill which 

 alone can make them finished journeymen. 



THE FARMER IN RELATION TO THE WELFARE OF THE WHOLE 



COUNTRY 



There is but one person whose welfare is as vital to the wel- 

 fare of the whole country as is that of the wage-worker who does 

 manual labor, and that is the tiller of the soil — the farmer. If 

 there is one lesson taught by history, it is that the permanent 

 greatness of any state must ultimately depend more upon the 

 character of its country population than upon anything else. 

 No growth of cities, no growth of wealth, can make up for a loss 

 in either the number or the character of the farming population. 

 In the United States more than in almost any other country we 

 should realize this and should prize our country population. 

 When this nation began its independent existence it was as a 

 nation of farmers. The towns were small and were for the most 

 part mere seacoast trading and fishing ports. The chief indus- 

 try of the country was agriculture, and the ordinary citizen was 

 in some way connected with it. In every great crisis of the past 

 a peculiar dependence has had to be placed upon the farming 

 population; and this dependence has hitherto been justified. 

 But it cannot be justified in the future if agriculture is permitted 

 to sink in the scale as compared with other employments. We 



