No. 4.] NEW ENGLAND AGRICULTUKE. 101 



schools for instruction or hold institutes with the avowed 

 object of quickening interest in rural life. 



The personality of the men who stand as instructors is a 

 potential factor ; but back of that there must be more faith 

 in the industry, made manifest in a deeper enthusiasm, before 

 the young will feel their nerves quivering with desire to strike 

 hands for larger control and wider dominion over the giant 

 forces of nature. 



No man can Avork out the })roblem by physical power alone 

 by himself to-da}-. There must centre in and unite with 

 him great forces and agencies ; and to compass the work 

 given into his hands, the man must first be a thinker, with 

 powder of concentration. 



The dano;er in our industrial life is that, for the lack of 

 this concentration, men will drop to the level of the machines 

 by whose sides they are working, and become automatic in 

 their operations ; and the danger out upon the farm is that 

 the mechanical will claim attention to such a degree that men 

 will forset that the hand is to be but the willing servant of 

 an active brain. 



The work of this Board of Agriculture, it seems to me, is, 

 first of all, to quicken thought, then to arouse ambition, 

 then to stimulate enthusiasm for the larger lines of service 

 wliich open on every hand ; and the education demanded is 

 not to make men farmers or mechanics or tradesmen, but 

 first of all to make them men, and to cultivate within them 

 the desire to know, to do and to see things as they are, and 

 to grasp their meaning; to realize that life is not all in the 

 hustle and bustle ; that there is something beyond the mere 

 making of machines ; that more is involved in life than 

 simply the growing of crops or the making of products ; 

 that the ownership of things is crude and unsatisfactory, and 

 that mastery comes only when men know by what means 

 and methods the steps which they desire to take are to be 

 obtained. 



Honor to the young man who aspires and resolves to own 

 his home or his farm ; but if he be content with this owner- 

 shi}), it dwarfs manhood and belittles life. There must be 

 the broader conception of what the home or farm stands for, 



