SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 247 



that can be obtained through agricultural colleges by insisting 

 upon a constantly more practical curriculum in the schools in 

 which his children are taught. He must not lose his independ- 

 ence, his initiative, his rugged self-sufficiency; and yet he must 

 learn to work in the heartiest co-operation with his fellows. 



EDUCATIONAL AND RESEARCH WORK OF THE DEPARTMENT OF 

 AGRICULTURE 



The corner stones of our unexampled prosperity are, on the 

 one hand, the production of raw material, and its manufacture 

 and distribution on the other. These two great groups of sub- 

 jects are represented in the national government principally by 

 the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Com- 

 merce and Labor. The production of raw material from the 

 surface of the earth is the sphere in which the Department of 

 Agriculture has hitherto achieved such notable results. Of all 

 the executive departments there is no other, not even the Post- 

 Office, which comes into more direct and beneficent contact 

 with the daily life of the people than the Department of Agri- 

 culture, and none whose yield of practical benefits is greater in 

 proportion to the public money expended. 



But great as its services have been in the past, the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture has a still larger field of usefulness ahead. 

 It has been dealing with growing crops. It must hereafter deal 

 also with living men. Hitherto agricultural research, instruc- 

 tion, and agitation have been directed almost exclusively toward 

 the production of wealth from the soil. It is time to adopt in 

 addition a new point of view. Hereafter another great task 

 before the national Department of Agriculture and the similar 

 agencies of the various states must be to foster agriculture for 

 its social results, or, in other words, to assist in bringing about 

 the best kind of life on the farm for the sake of producing the 

 best kind of men. The government must recognize the far- 

 reaching importance of the study and treatment of the problems 



