20 Address. 



and perverts the judgment of well meaning and well educated men. 

 The idea that agriculture is a practical pursuit ; that it is one re- 

 quiring energy and labor, and that therefore well-knit bones, tough, 

 clastic muscles, are about the only requisite ; that intelligence and 

 education unfits a man, or disinclines him to engage in a laborious 

 pursuit as this is said to be, is the honest opinion of a great many, 

 and of some, I fear, who do not choose to avow it. Agriculture is a 

 practical pursuit, requiring hard work and energy, practical knowl- 

 edge, and practice, to make it a success. But it is no more so than 

 that of the medical profession, no more than of the engineer, no more 

 than the artisan or manufacturer. Practical knowledge is the test of 

 your physician's skill. Will you on that account say that the most 

 thorough discipline and theoretical education is not essential for him. 

 That it will make him simply a theorist, a book physician, and give 

 over this noble profession to born physicians, seventh sons, and 

 quacks, who have had no training for their work ? We have lived 

 with our souls darkened, and behind the age, if we have not yet ta- 

 ken in, and made a part of our being, the idea that mind controls 

 matter in everything, everywhere, and shapes it to its will. And 

 that the more thoroughly is the mind trained and disciplined, the 

 more fully is it stored with facts, truths and principles, the more pow- 

 erful is its possessor in dealing with practical material objects. It is 

 this education which has made the medical profession what it is : 

 this, which has enabled one laborer in the nineteenth century to 

 perform the work of ten in the sixteenth ; this, which has built 

 those solid structures which breast the flow of your great rivers, 

 which has invented your modern machinery, built up your thriving 

 manufacturing towns, your endless lines of railroads, with their mar- 

 vels of engineering, bridges and tunnels, and it is this which has 

 given practical power and efficacy to the blows of the laborer in ev- 

 ery department of improvement. Now shall we deny to, or neglect 

 to provide for, agriculture, that special training which has been the 

 cause of this wonderful progress in every other department of indus- 

 try ? No — not if we are wise. Yes — if we are otherwise, and 

 would have those who come after us, despise us for our short-sight- 

 edness. But there arc strong and sufficient reasons why the agricul- 

 turalist should be the last to be neglected in regard to that which is 



