No. 4.] FARMERS' NATIONAL CONGRESS. 555 



national Legislatures to this end? What can this Congress do as 

 a great force to arrest the tendency of the American farmer to 

 destroy the natural fertility of his farm? What can we do to 

 arouse public opinion and the great educational forces of the 

 country to the importance of teaching the elements of agriculture 

 in the primary schools of our land? Our present system of agri- 

 cultural education is an image with a head of brass, a body of 

 iron and feet of clay. We are directing all our energies to the 

 head and not to the feet. 



Our common schools recruit the academy, the college, the uni- 

 versity, and they in turn recruit every profession but farming. 

 Our young men flee to the towns and cities, because we have edu- 

 cated them to do so. 



Nearly every European country is putting forth efforts to stop 

 this tendency by teaching the elements of scientific agriculture in 

 the common schools. It can be done as easily as the teaching of 

 the elements of scientific arithmetic or chemistry or philosophy. 

 A great host of farmers who were deprived of such teaching find 

 themselves barred from an undertaking of much of the agricultural 

 literature. As a consequence, they turn away from the agricult- 

 ural college, the bulletin of the experiment station and the farm 

 paper, from that which is really worth anything to them. Had 

 these men been taught in their youth, in the common schools, the 

 meaning of the terms used in agricultural chemistry, something 

 of the principles of animal husbandry, something of the true 

 principles which underlie the preservation of fertility, they would 

 be to-day in much more harmonious relations with all which con- 

 stitutes agricultural progress. May we not hope that this Con- 

 gress will create a sentiment that will greatly help along this 

 needed educational reform? 



The Farmers' National Congress is a patriotic body. The 

 meaning of patriotism is self-sacrifice. Without sacrifice there 

 can be no patriotism. The very fact that you have assembled 

 here, many from a great distance and at your own expense, 

 gives proof of your public spirit, your anxiety to benefit the 

 cause of agriculture, and of your practical patriotism. The 

 country needs such patriotism. To that we look for the ex- 

 tinction of corruption in politics, the promotion of honest gov- 

 ernment, the suppression of crime, the encouragement of honest 

 industry, and a just reward to labor as well as to capital. 



The farmers' National Congress is needed as an organizing 

 body of opinion as best it can for national legislation in support 

 of the Department of Agriculture. Our present able and sagacious 

 Secretary of Agriculture is doing what he can to introduce Amer- 



