forecast with accuracy the future of all these topics — and not 

 get on the wrong side. But, of course, a private secretary it 

 is not to be assumed knows all these things, so that you will 

 only expect me to speak briefly, and not much more than to 

 bring you the most cordial and hearty greeting and good will 

 of Governor Fernald, chief executive of the State of Maine, 

 which I do. 



I appreciate the fact and I am proud to speak for a governor 

 wlio on all occasions and in all places, when it seemed fitting, 

 lias never liesitated to say to the people of his State that his 

 home always has been, is now, and he hopes and expects always 

 Vvill be, upon the farm. 



I believe, I am confident, that that will reach the right place 

 in the hearts of many a young man in the State, and go far to 

 hold or send him to a work that more and more demands 

 brains, energy, and common sense to achieve success — not in 

 the field of law or medicine, of the ministry or commerce, but 

 right here on God's broad acres in the State of Maine. 



Twenty-five years, Mr. Chairman, is a short span in the life 

 of a State, but in that period Maine has grown in wealth, has 

 increased in valuation $175,000,000. We may well believe that 

 many of those millions are due to the broad influence, radiating 

 to the four corners of the State, of this great institution that 

 has been reared in the valley of the Penobscot by the faith and 

 sacrifices of our own people. And I believe we are just enter- 

 ing upon an era of prosperity and of usefulness — for we must 

 not inculcate the folly of measuring our progress wholly by the 

 yardstick — that the next quarter of a century will eclipse by 

 vast strides any like period in the history of the State. And 

 v/hy ? Our fathers builded upon the firm foundation of a Con- 

 stitution that declared its purpose to be to establish justice, 

 insure tranquility, promote the common defense and secure to 

 themselves and their posterity the blessings of liberty. Upon 

 those fundamental principles we have erected our statutes of 

 education, of morality, of religion, of temperance, of the public 

 health, of charity, and no people that keeps its face turned 

 toward these eternal truths can reach any other goal than that 

 which all people know it were better to strive for. 



Director Woods— Maine has been fortunate in its executives, 

 not only in the Governor's chair, but in that which, since the 

 establishment of the State Board of Agriculture, has liad mucli 



