72 ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



tural show in America. I believe it to be easily practicable to build up a 

 valuable and every way creditable exhibition of dairy products ; perhaps of 

 dairy cows. This cannot be done in one year, nor can it be done at all if 

 dairy farmers and manufacturers are* too critical, insistinsf that every detail 

 of management shall be in exact harmony with their own notions. 



I have referred to the intelligence of dairymen and to the marked advance 

 in dairy practice. There is room for much more progress in education and 

 experiment. It is interesting to note the desire for a special dairy experi- 

 mental station in the State. While the Illinois Industrial University, by 

 the requirements of the laws under which it is established, is mainly a 

 school for teaching rather than an experimental station, I am glad to say 

 that it will be heartily glad to be of any aid practicable. It will try to give 

 to any intending dairymen such education as may better fit them for their 

 work, and to try experiments, answer questions, make investigations, so far 

 as is practicable at any time. 



Among the many great interests in this great State of ours which will 

 long remain chiefly an agricultural State, dairying will long remain promin- 

 ent, progressive and prosperous. I cannot flatter you by saying it will ever 

 be the chief agricultural interest, but it need never have a less important 

 position than it now possess. 



Convention adjourned to meet at 7.30 p. m. same day. 

 Met pursuant to adjournment at 7.30 p. m. 

 Music by the band. 

 Essay:— 



THE KEED OF SCHOOLS TEACHING HOUSEHOLD SCIENCE. 



BY MRS. J. H. DAVIS, DEKALB, ILL. 



Such a meeting as this gives the economist and philanthropist encourage- 

 ment. Such a meeting as this makes us realize that we are making some 

 advances over the age in which our fathers lived. A meeting like this shows 

 that the dairymen of Illinois are thinking, and are thus not only developing 

 their own resources and reaping rewards for themselvi-s, but in doing so are 

 becoming a public good — a national good. 



It is not alone the dairymen of our land who are helping to advance the 

 age in which we live, by becoming intelligent laborers. Men having kindred 

 interests of all professions and trades are joining themselves into associa- 

 tions for the purpose of scientific inquiry into the causes and means of suc- 

 cess in their business or professions. To-day as never before, men of .all 

 classes are becoming convinced that thought must be the companion of 

 labor. Mechanics are no longer content with a few tools in unskilled hands. 

 They must not only have fundamental training but books and papers and 

 organizations to keep them informed of improvements in their arts and 

 tri-ides. Even the steady-going farmer so long content to do as his father 

 before him had done is catching the spirit of the age and is studying the soil 

 he plows, the nature of the plants he cultivates, the kind of stock to be 

 raised for a given purpose, the food required, and numberless other ques- 

 tions connected with his work. Law-makers have foreseen the public need 

 and good, and have been instrumental in establishing industrial* schools 



