THE DEMONSTRATION WORK 



for their children, and better scholastic education will accompany 

 the general uplift." 



"Nothwithstanding these adverse conditions there has been a 

 great improvement in the South in the last twelve years, due in 

 part to the general prosperity of the country and in part to the 

 heroic efforts of her people. They have put forth almost super- 

 human efforts to reconstruct upon that basis what was left, to re- 

 build what of value has been destroyed, and to create whatever was 

 necessary to round out the best civilization of the age. No people 

 ever worked more heroically and with greater unity of purpose.'' 



"We speak of 'the sovereign people.' Are they to be sovereign 

 in fact or only in theory? If in fact, then each citizen must own 

 and control something. In a sense he must be lord, of a certain 

 territory. This territory, is called a farm, but legally it is a sub- 

 division of the state, to which the farmer has perpetual title in order 

 that he may have the means to support his position as an independent 

 sovereign with dignity and by absolutely governing a small por- 

 tion of the United States learn to assist wisely in governing the 

 whole." 



"This education of the farmer upon his farm by working out 

 problems in the field and receiving the answer in the crib or granary 

 is, like all education, a personal matter, and each man must acquire 

 it for himself. This points to the small farm, personally worked, 

 as the best for the man, for the land, for society and for the state." 



"Education is what a human being absorbs in a usable form 

 by experience, by observation, and from oral and written instruction. 

 The world's most important school is the home and the small farm. 

 To secure the best results the small farmer is forced to diversify his 

 crop and to have a personal knowledge of all details relating to the 

 farm. For safety he must get an income from a variety of products 

 because a single crop may fail in yield or meet a non-responsive 

 market. This wider range of products broadens the knowledge of 

 the farmer and in the natural course of training he becomes skilled 

 in the management of soils, cereal and grass crops, fruits, forests, 

 domestic animals, farm machinery and farm improvements. He 

 is forced to be a student of markets and of the art of buying and 

 selling to the best advantage; he learns the requirements of society 

 and the advantage of cooperative effort. Cooperation may com- 



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