72 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Do I mean to say that the agricultural college should 

 offer to 3 r oung women, as a means of fitting themselves for 

 the practical duties of life, all the advantages that it does to 

 young men ? I do, most emphatically. Human society is 

 not unsymmetrical with a preponderance of influence and 

 duty on one side of the sexual line. The sexual line marks 

 a partial differentiation of work and responsibility in kind, 

 with but little distinction as to importance. I am profoundly 

 convinced, then, that it is the mission of agricultural col- 

 leges to promote home economics as faithfully as they do 

 farm economics. No other institutions are called upon to 

 maintain so close a relation to the physical and economic 

 life of our people as do these. The scientific truths that 

 touch the farm touch human existence and activity at all 

 points. One art, one sex, one condition, one class of 

 society, cannot move along by itself in an independent prog- 

 ress, and any symmetrical, well-considered scheme of educa- 

 tion must recognize this fact. 



It is the industrial classes whose liberal and practical edu- 

 cation is to be promoted. What a vast responsibility such a 

 scheme of education entails ! These classes are the seed bed 

 of the nation's character. Here we sow knowledge, inter- 

 pretation of truth, sentiment and moral purpose in a fertile 

 and responsive soil, each to spring up and grow and fruit 

 after its kind. Here and there some towering growth in 

 industrial effort, in literature, in statesmanship or even in 

 the art of war shall encourage and inspire us ; but we shall 

 accomplish our chief and highest purpose if the life currents 

 of the people who attain no high altitude of intellectual or 

 social distinction shall build into the body of our nation the 

 enduring and invincible fibre of truth, justice and patriot- 

 ism. Upon you, citizens of this mother State, has been laid 

 the duty and high privilege of ministering in no common 

 degree to the nourishment and manner of growth of this 

 dominant republic. May this heritage pass from generation 

 to generation as a solemn and cherished trust ! 



The Chairman. This lecture this afternoon must have 

 opened to you new avenues of thought, which I hope some 

 of you will feel like following out. The distinction which 



