THIRTY-EIGHTH ANNUAL CONVENTION 141 



has followed. Either the outside interests have dominated or the 

 organization has been broken square in two. In this progressive 

 age, where agriculture is assuming its proper place and the boys 

 and girls are coming on, there is the dawn of a better condition. 

 When questions are to be discussed and talks made in banquets 

 and elsewhere you will not call upon the outsider to entertain 

 you. You will depend upon the young men from your farms 

 taking a step further than you have done. You will be enter- 

 tained and probably have the advantage of a liberal education, 

 in what they say. 



I mean this. It is almost impossible in a public meeting to 

 get a farmer to say "boo." That is all wrong. Their habits of liv- 

 ing in the past, and doing just as their ancestors did in such things 

 must all be done away with. They are too retiring and that is 

 wrong. The younger element will be educated out of that idea. It 

 is easy to talk to anybody in a general way about what to do. 

 But don't you know that a large share of what the farmer gets 

 from the outside, even from the specialist reminds one very much 

 of this story, and it is a fair illustration of how the outside world 

 approach the farming community for the purpose of giving them 

 instruction. 



A young man, who had recently graduated from one of the 

 seminaries was sent out in the Rocky Mountains to preach. The 

 first Sunday he took for his subject "Phenomenon." There were 

 a large number present, mostly cow-boys, and people of that 

 class. He talked an hour on the subject of phenomenon. The 

 next day a young woman said to him, "won't you please explain 

 to me what is meant by phenomenon." The preacher said, "I 

 will explain, and will give you an illustration. You see the bird 

 sitting on the fence and singing, that is not a phenomenon, that 

 is natural; those cattle grazing on the hill-side is not a phenom- 

 enon, that is natural too; you see the eagle on that dead limb of a 

 tree hanging out over the side of the mountain, that is not a 

 phenomenon, that is natural; but, if you should see a cow sitting 

 on a thistle and singing like a bird, that would be a phenomenon." 



Just a word on the general subject of legislation. During 

 the past few years, in fact during the last ten years, more laws 



