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moou comes nearer accomplishing bis purpose than such a 

 growler. Why have not farmers taken a position of influ- 

 ence and power in the councils of the nation and other- 

 wise, in proportion to their numbers and wraith? Simply 

 because we have not used our brains. 



"The world pays homage to intelligence, to intellect, 

 and puts it in places of honor, of trust, of responsibility. 

 The world is not partial to lawyers, ministers and doctors, 

 but the world wants to use brains, and accepts them wher- 

 ever found, and uses them to promote its wishes; and if we 

 farmers want to be placed in the foremost rank in the nat- 

 ion and in the world; if we wish to be put in positions where 

 we can have power to aid our fellows; if we wish to have 

 influence and make our mark on the institutions of the land; 

 if we wish to stand where we can do something toward 

 governing the price of our commodities; if we wish to weigh 

 according to our size in the scale of public opinion; if we 

 want to have farmers in demand for places of trust and 

 honor and profit, and for husbands for beautiful, refined 

 and intelligent women; if we want to escape from our pres- 

 ent vassalage, we must furnish some brains, sound in 

 quality, liberal in quantity, polished with constant use, re- 

 fined by study and thought. Show me such a farmer as 

 that, and I will show you a man whom his fellow-men will 

 want to use in places of trust, 



"1 speak it in sorrow; 1 admit it with deep and burn- 

 ing shame, that the farmers can furnish but comparatively 

 few men whose minds are fitted to organize great enterpris- 

 es. Look at the farmers in our Legislature. In numbers 

 they are very small in proportion to the population of the 

 State, and smaller yet in the influence they have upon the 

 legislation. When they come in contact with men who are 

 in the habit of close and logical reasoning, they, with few 

 exceptions, prove wanting. It may, and probably will be 

 said that head-work will not hoe corn or feed the pigs. 

 Granted. But prove to me that an intelligent man is dis- 



