70 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



DAIRY EDUCATION IN ILLINOIS. 



PROF. EUGENE DAVENPORT, URBANA, ILL. 



I find this an immense subject, both because Illinois is 

 a big thing, and education is a big thing; and dairying is a 

 big thing, too, and representing the institution that I do, I 

 find myself considerably involved. It would not be fair to 

 treat the subject from the standpoint of the University, for 

 that would ])e dairy education at the University. At the 

 same time, it is not within the range of human possibilities 

 for a man standing here and representing the institution that 

 I do, to treat the subject without mentioning the University, 

 and so I have done both. In what I have written and in 

 what 1 shall say I shall occupy most of the time upon the 

 general question rather than upon the particular, and if I 

 have omitted to say anything that T ought to have said about 

 dairy affairs at the I^niversity of Illinois, it must be credited 

 to mj extreme modesty. 



We of the United States occupA^ a virgin continent with 

 the accumulated fertility of centuries, and unquestionably 

 nowhere else and never since the morning of creation has 

 nature yielded her stored energy so generously as here in 

 America within the memory of men yet living. Although noi 

 agreeable to our vanity it is well within the truth to say 

 that we of this country have grown rich and prosperous, not 

 so much by knowledge and skill as by the spontaneous pro- 

 ductions of a virgin soil. 



As the superabundance of fertility fails, and we begin 

 to hear of it, more and more will technical ability be required 

 to compensate for the lessened natural productiveness and 

 to make the most of the conditions of life. The time is 

 coming and now is when technical ability will pay, nay more 

 than that, when nothing else will pay. Somebody has re- 

 cently said that Germany is destined to be prosperous and 

 piowerful beyond her present measure because she has laid the 

 foundation in her technical schools. 



The conditions of life have been so easy and food so abund- 

 ant that many of our people have lost sight of the economic 

 importance of the food su])ply of a great nation, and with the 

 miHtiturle of fine arts and "higher occupations," and with the 



