THE COLLEGE AND FARMING 



think it strange that the college boy has not 

 gone back to the farm ; it would be stranger 

 if the men of unusual ability had gone back 

 to the farm. To capable men the door of 

 opportunity always opens : they enter. 



Another type of youth who has gone to 

 college is the one who cares for books more 

 than for affairs. The college satisfies him. 

 He is willing to remain in an inferior posi- 

 tion if only he can have access to libraries 

 and to the company of bookish men. This 

 is not anomalous, nor even strange. Some 

 men like cattle; some like steam engines; 

 some like books. Of course the book man 

 is not adapted to be a farmer. If he goes 

 back to the farm, he becomes the "book 

 farmer. ' ' He has missed his calling and he 

 has had his day. There is a place in the 

 world for this man; and this place he is 

 now finding. 



The college may take a man away from 

 the farm because it opens the world to him 

 rather than because it unfits him for the 

 farm. Many of the men who leave the 

 farm by the college route probably never 

 would have made good farmers if they had 

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