Ao. 4.] AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 105 



son why the farmer boy becomes a forceful and strong char- 

 acter when he comes to the city is not because he has had 

 lessons in faikire, and possibly later in successful efforts he 

 has overcome it? We have some fast crews at Cornell 

 University, and we have been in the habit during the past 

 few years of defeating other crews. This last year, how- 

 ever, we were defeated by our neighbor, the Syracuse Uni- 

 versity. Of course the young men felt blue. I said to some 

 of them, who talked with me about it, that I was exceed- 

 ingly glad they were defeated, — which did not increase my 

 popularity with the students, — and for two reasons : first, 

 that in intercollegiate sports one university should not take 

 all the honors ; and, in the second place, the discipline of 

 defeat has an educational value. The value is in the dis- 

 cipline of the defeat. The farmer boy works under hard 

 conditions many times, and perhaps he may fail ; but, after 

 all, he is guided by a kind mother and a strong father, who 

 work for the strength of character and the honesty of pur- 

 pose of the young man. And is not that one reason why 

 the Xew England people have conquered the west as they 

 have? 



Fifth, to train the student in ways and methods of acquir- 

 ing information for himself, and incidentally to acquaint him 

 with the manner in which information was originally acquired 

 and the world's stock of knowledge has been accumulated. 

 Is it not the object of our schools to develop in the young 

 man the power to store his mind with information ? It is a 

 very important part of education, which I do not wish to 

 minimize ; but, after all, the school must develop this power 

 that he may acquire information for himself. A person 

 wrote to me a while ago, " ]\Iy ducks arc dying ; what shall 

 I do with them?" I said, "Bury them." And then a 

 farmer said, " The ends of my apple limbs are dying; what 

 shall I do ? " I said, ' ' What are they dying with ? " " I don't 

 know," he said; "I want you to tell me." "Well, have 

 you examined them ? " " No, I just saw them from the barn- 

 yard." The farmer can never solve his own problems until 

 he gets into the habit of accjuiring information for himself, 

 — see the things, and know what he sees. And the schools 



