ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN 's ASSOCIATION. 161 



You know Emerson, among the other good things he 

 has written, once said, " If you would go to India and 

 gain any benefit from the visit, you must take India 

 with you, 1 ' and so I say if you are going to the Exposition 

 with the expectation of finding anything that will stay 

 by you, you must take it with you ; or, in a little plainer 

 English, \'ou can not expect to be interested in things 

 you know nothing about beforehand, no matter how 

 interesting they may be to some one else. Now, I can 

 in imagination see our worthy president visiting the 

 Fair for the first time. I know just what he will do. 

 He will make a B line for the elegant building where 

 the Columbian Dairy Association is to run the Dairy 

 School, and will probably spend most of his time either 

 there or among the dairy cattle, and either will be a 

 mighty good place to spend it. We shall see him there, 

 unless through some influence he happens between now 

 and that time to become interested and read up on 

 archa3ology, for instance, in which case we will be spook- 

 ing around among the old Roman and Trogan relics or 

 absorbed in arrow heads from southern Illinois Indian 

 mounds. On the other hand, }^our school teachers will 

 haunt the educational department, some of your towns- 

 people will be absorbed in the mining exhibit, and each 

 man, woman and child will take the deepest interest in 

 the subjects in which he or she is the best posted, and 

 no lasting or what we might call absorbing or appro- 

 priating interest in the things about which they know 

 little or nothing. 



Now, you see, how it is going to work. There is 

 coming to our very doors an opportunity of gaining 

 detailed, accurate knowledge on a thousand subjects, 

 which will never come again certainly to us, and prob- 

 ably not to our children or grandchildren. 



