148 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



that they can never expect to own, and is accordingly time wasted as 

 far as building a real home is concerned. Surely one of the most 

 urgent matters before the country today is that of providing some 

 sort of credit facilities for the young farmer and his wife starting with- 

 out capital in order that they may get started at once toward making 

 a home of their own. 



BETTER CREDIT, AND THEN 



But again we must realize that even this will not take us all the 

 way. A good farmer remarked just recently that to be able to bor- 

 row money is important, but to be able to pay it back is more im- 

 portant. Certainly we need better credit facilities for farmers, but 

 just as certainly we need a better assurance of being able to pay out. 

 For pay day always comes, and it is hard to see how the farmer can 

 afford to pay six per cent interest for money to invest in a business 

 that does not yield that much in returns. And we must face the 

 fact that even with pre-war price relations reestablished, the average 

 farmer cannot buy corn-belt land, equip and farm it, and make six 

 per cent on his investment after paying wages, taxes, insurance, upkeep, 

 and living expenses, not to mention wages for the work done by his 

 wife and family. Now if it is going to be necessary for the farmer 

 to deny himself and his family all culture and even the ordinary com- 

 forts of modern life to make both ends meet, we cannot hope to 

 build a very great number of permanent homes in the country, and 

 we cannot expect to keep our best young men and women on the farm. 

 If it is worth while to give a college education in agriculture, that 

 education should fit the student for life on the farm. For not all of 

 our graduates can spend their lives in research or teaching or exten- 

 sion work. And in just so far as the products of our agricultural 

 college will go back to the farm to put in practise the principles they 

 have learned here, in just that measure will the influence of the 

 college grow and strengthen our commonwealth. 



But it is commonly said that a college education trains the boy 

 or girl away from the farm. And in a measure this is true. Four 

 years here at college have accustomed them to conveniences and com- 

 forts that they have never had on the farm. Not fine clothes and 

 elaborate furniture and gay society, but things that are coming more 

 and more to be regarded as necessities of life. Running water, good 

 lights, mechanical laundry and cleaning equipment, music and books 

 and, what is just as important, a little time to enjoy them; a home 

 and farmstead built to harmonize with its surroundings and furnish 



