The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1900-10-18

IN an address to young men, and the
North Carolina College Of Agriculture
and Mechanic Arts is endcavoring to
furnish just such men. Men who are
ready at once to take any acceptable
part in the activities of the world,
and to make the world better by their
lives. Many years ago was present
during the building of great railroad
bridge over great river. There
were men there driving horses that
hauled logs from the water, and the
horse and the man each got 81 per
day. Further along were carpenters
shaping the timbers. They got $3.50
per day. Moving briskly among the
compass, laying off the work, and he
got IS per day. Up in the office sit
ting quietly smoking cigar by a
table covered with maps and calcu-
lations was the engineer in charge,
without whose designs and educated
brain none of the others would have
had job, and he got four times as
hands of the carpenters could prob
ably cut the timbers better than he
could, but he knew more than they
did why they were cut SO and how
much of the strain each was to carry.
1t was the greatest example of the
value of educated brains and trained
hands / ever saw, The hewers of
wood and the drawers of water were
on the same plane as the horses they
drove because the only thing they had
developed was muscle, and mere mus
Gle brings its owner less money in
this worlds work than any thing else.
Just to the extent the man develops
brain power will his reward increase.
The world is full of men who by rea-
son of lack of mental ability or the
force of circumstances have not be-
come skilled in any department of in
dustry, and who therefore will always
be the hewers of wood and the draw
ers of water, while the men who
develop their mental powers and at
the same time gain manual skill in
some line will be paid just in proper
ton to the mental development.
Educated men, who know how to do
something, will always be the leaders
in every enterprise of Importance.
Not only is this true in the mechani-
cal pursuits but it is no less true on
the farm. The day is past when it
was only the bookish lad of the FAM
lily was thought worthy of an educa-
ton and the one who was to manage
the farm needed none. Men are
rapidly learning that the farmers who
are developing the land are the men
who are students and readers as we'll
as workers. Educated brains and
trained hands are as essential to sue
cess in agriculture and horticulture
as in the shop. In Virginia one wise
rich man employed an educated and
trained man at $1,000 year to man
age his great truck farm, and he did
it with such success that the farm
was the greatest money maker in all
the State, and after the owner died
the heirs continued the contract.
1t is for the development of the
brain power in agriculture that the
college would work. But in this
effort we are met by the fact that the
farmers when they send their sons to
college want them to study anything
but agriculture. Never having farm
ed successfully themselves many have
a notion that there is no need for an
education if man is to be farmer.
They look upon farming as handi-
craft that can be learned only behind
a mule, and have failed to realize that
it is one Of the most learned profess
sions, since it includes knowledge of
several sciences. The fact that the
student farmers, the men who read
and think, are today the most sue
cessful does not seem to be under
stood by the average farmer in the
South. When he sends his boy to
get an education he wants to have
him take place among the learned