66 THE FARMER AND THE NEW DAY 



munity wants a good schoolhouse, it gets it and pays for 

 it because the farms of the region are made to pay bet- 

 ter partly at least on account of the wish of the peo- 

 ple to have a better schoolhouse. We cannot be sure 

 of all the reasons why we work harder than we other- 

 wise might, but we do know that the increase of our de- 

 sires stimulates us to greater and more effective toil. 

 So that once more we find that the desire for " these 

 other things " - education and recreation and good 

 houses and books and reading and better churches is 

 really a wonderful stimulus to better farming. For 

 farmers, like other people, do not work for money 

 only for what money will buy. What farmers want 

 for their labor is not really profit but the things and 

 the experiences that their profits will get for them and 

 their families. 



Worst of all, the doctrine we are endeavoring to 

 combat strikes at the root of a really sane wholesome 

 view of human life itself and tends to substitute means 

 for ends. What does it profit a man if he gain the 

 whole world and lose his own soul? What is the gain 

 in bigger barns if the man's life is required of him on 

 the morrow? Shall we never, never learn the lesson? 

 A man's work, yes even profit, is only a means to an 

 end, and the end is life. So with farming. Shall 

 the farmer plow and sow and reap and gather into 

 barns; toil early and toil late, sweat and strain, and go 

 with gnarled fingers and bent shoulders, merely that 

 he may wring a few more dollars out of it all? No; 

 the end and purpose of " better farm practice '' and of 

 " better farm business " is a " better farm life." // 

 we don't get that we fail! Let us not forget this 

 truth. We must not, cannot disregard the means to 



