ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. i^y 



of the cow is fixed by her capacity to digest and' assimilate food. 



Finally, an essential to future development must be found in a cam^ 

 paign of education, and the strategic vantage ground from which this 

 -campaign must be begun andi car ried on in the future is in the public 

 schools, established by the peopl e for the benefit of the people and for 

 all the people. Our public schools must be made the recruiting ground 

 from which those who are to fight the battle of rural industrial develop- 

 ment are to be drawn, a class of industrial workers superior in disci- 

 pline and efficiency to the present generation, superior to any the world 

 has ever known. 



It devolves upon us as an industrial organization to see to it that 

 eur public school shall be made the recruiting ground for filling the 

 ranks of skilled, and intelligent w orkers in rural industrial lines, as th^y 

 now are and always have been ag encies for educating away from indus- 

 trial lines andi into commercial and! professional lines. 



There is nothing novel or unreasonable in this demand. Anything 

 ishort of this means that the pres ent lame and unsatisfactory methods 

 are to continue. 



Already our enterprising neighbor, the province of Canada, has a 

 law upon her statute books fixin g the limit of time when all applicants 

 for certificates to teach in her rural public schools shall pass an ex- 

 amination determining the quail fication of such applications' as to their 

 ability to successfully and acceptably teach the elementary- principles of 

 practical agriculture. The sooner we place such laws on the statute 

 books of every state in the Union the better for all the interests con- 

 cerned. Not untfl we have such laws in force in every state will our 

 rural public schools reasonably fulfill the purpose for which they were 

 esitablishedl and for which they a re sustained. 



Music by Mr. and Mrs, Ritchie entitled "In Meadows Green." Kind^ 

 iy nesponided t'o an encore. 



