No. 4.] AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES. 63 



This is a young nation which is passing through a period of 

 intense development. There is a call on every hand to new 

 conquests in the industrial arts which are utilizing our vast 

 material resources ; large financial prizes are open to the 

 indomitable energy and pluck of the Yankee ; the profes- 

 sional and legislative fields are fertile with opportunities to 

 render distinguished service in solving our unique social 

 and political problems. Nowhere on this continent is the 

 thrill of these great possibilities felt more keenly than in 

 these New England States. You have become a manufact- 

 uring people, to whose shops and mills are gathered the 

 raw materials of all nations. Here is the nurture ground 

 for much of the professional ability, the scholarship, the 

 literature and the statesmanship of this great republic, 

 whose triumphs are every day opening up new possibilities 

 to its young citizens. 



Cast aside, then, J pray you, that sentimentalism concern- 

 ing farm life which is devoid of business sense, and without 

 the hindrance of prejudice allow your judgment to deal 

 fairly with the youth who, in the midst of the largest oppor- 

 tunities that were ever presented to ambitious manhood in 

 any age or among any people, is an anxious seeker for all 

 the rightful acquisitions and honors which he may wrest 

 from the life before him. Without criticism, allow him a 

 free choice of his calling. Be content if some of your sons 

 see in agriculture the fulfilment of their highest aspirations, 

 and give to the others the Godspeed that you do to those 

 who enter into the work you hold so dear. And, above all, 

 do not expect those considerations which everywhere pre- 

 vail regarding the returns from an investment of capital, 

 intellectual or otherwise, to be ignored in the affairs of 

 agriculture. 



Do not understand me as claiming that the agricultural 

 colleges of New England have been utilized to the full limit 

 that wisdom and good judgment would dictate. There are 

 scores of farmers in all these States, and many who have 

 declined to be farmers, the great mistake of whose lives is 

 that they did not spend a portion of their youth in securing 

 the best possible preparation for a life work on the farm. 

 They have been content either to leave good agricultural 



