494 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
the farmers’ daughters too^ were not receiving the education which 
farmers’ sons and farmers’ daughters should. I mean that they are 
not receiving the Jcind of education that they should to become far¬ 
mers and farmers’ wives. 
I feel that they are not receiving the education which best fits 
them for success pecuniarily, and more particularly are they not re¬ 
ceiving that education in our schools which fits them to become 
contented and happy farmers; that education which will make them 
to stay iqyon the farm at all. Allow me to ask, and to 
answer in my own way. Who is the farmer? He is a servant of 
Nature. All that he does is to assist her in carrying out her great 
laws. In planting the seed, in carefully tending the growing ciops, 
and in gathering the harvest, he must bow to her dictates. If the 
seed is not planted at the right time, or in the right manner, or in 
the right place, or the growing plant is not rightly tended and fed, 
or the harvest is not properly gathered, then he meets with failure. 
Upon the doing of all these things right, and with a will, will de¬ 
pend his success. The question now stands before us, How is the 
farmer to be educated to do this, or what education can he receive 
that will, in any way, help him do it? Beyond the common school 
education, what is the farmer to study to fit him best to do all these 
things understandingly, and, at the same time, in a way to secure 
pleasure from them. 
A farmer with almost no education at all, except so far as he has 
gathered it himself during an activ^ business life, can pass along 
respectably, and as a farmer, successfully, perhaps, and if he is sat¬ 
isfied with this, I have nothing to say. The question to-night is, 
How shall we educate our children? and I take this to mean some¬ 
thing more than the mere elements of an education, necessary to 
any one, whatever position in life he occupies. My answer to the 
question is, that our sons should be fitted to study NTature; her 
book is spread out wide before them. The farmer’s interest, as well 
as much of his happiness, is in the study of it, and yet how few of 
us are able t^ read one word from this great book. This seems to 
me to be the point where the farmer’s education comes short. We 
are not educated to the reading of this great open book of Nature. 
It seems to me there is a success with the farmer, beyond the dol¬ 
lar received for his crops. With most of us the dollar is the first, 
and perhaps the most important consideration, inasmuch as our 
