, 1907-06-01
CELEBRATING THE
sEM|-CENTENN|AL
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT DELlv.
Frs ABLE ADDRESS AT THE
LANSING GATHERING.
Talks Directly to the Man Who Works
With His Hands and Tells What
He Believes the Most Important
Things in Life-The Best Crop Is
the Crop of Children.

the Crop Of Children.
Lansing, Mich, June President
Roosevelt was here yesterday after
noon and delivered an address at the
semi-centennial celebration of the
founding of agricultural colleges in
the United States, the following &C.
curing in the address as transmitted
by the Associated Press:
Good Work of Colleges.
Agricultural colleges and farmers
institutes have done much in instruc-
ton and Inspiration; they have stood
for the nobility of labor and the ne
cessity of keeping the muscles and
the brain in training for industry.
They have developed technical depart
ments of high practical value. They
seek to provide for the people on the
farms an equipment SO broad and thor
ough as to fit them for the highest re.
quirements of our citizenship; so that
they can establish and maintain coun-
try homes of the best type, and create
anu SuSldll q Souht
more than equal to that of the city.
Must Meet Competition.
The men they train must be able to
meet the strongest business competi
ton, at home or abroad, and they a
do this only if they are trained not
alone in the various lines of husbandry
but in successful economic manage
ment. These colleges, like the state
experiment stations, should carefully
study and make known the needs of
each station, and should try to provide
remedies for what is wrong.
Relation of Theory and Fact.
The education to be obtained in
these colleges should create as init
mate relationship as is possible be
tween the theory of learning and the
facts of actual life. Educational es-
adjustments should produce highly
trained scholars, of course; but in a
country like ours, where the educa-
tionai establishments UT 80 numerous,
it is folly to think that their maio .ur-
pose is to produce these highly trained
scholars.
More Man Than Scholar.
Without in the least disparaging
scholarship and harrington the o
trary, while giving hearty and un-
grudging admiration and support to
the comparatively few whose primary
work should be creative scholarship
it must be remembered that the ordi
nary graduate Of our colleges should
be, and must be, primarily a man and
not a scholar. Education should not
confine itself to books. 1t must train
executive power, and try to create
that right public opinion which is the
most potent factor in the proper solu-
ton of all political and social ques-
tons.
Book Learning Is Not All.
Book learning is very important, but
it is by no mean everything; and we
shall never get the right idea of edu-
cation until we definitely understand
that a man may be well trained in book
learning and yet, in the proper sense
of the word, and for all practical pur-
poses, be utterly u~neducated; while a
man of comparatively little book
learning may, nevertheless. in essen
tials, have a good education.
Children the Best Crop.
The best crop is the crop Of chill
dren; the best products of the farm
are the men and women raised there
on; and the most instructive and prac-
teal treaties on farming, necessary
though they be, are no more necessary
than the books which teach US our
duty to our neighbor, and above all to
the neighbor who is of u own house
hold. You young men and women of
the agricultural and industrial col.
leges and schools-and, for that mat
ter, you who go to any college or
school-must have some time for
light reading; and there is some light
reading quite as useful as heavy read
ing, provided of course that you do
not read in a spirit of mere vacuity.
Many Good Books.
Aside from the great classics, and
thinking only of the many healthy and
stimulating books of the day, it is easy
10 pick out many which a really
serve as tracts, because they possess
what many avowed tracts and trea-
tises do not, the prime quality of being
interesting. You will learn the root
principles of self-help and h%elpfulness
toward others from Mrs. Wigs of
the Cabbage Patch" just as much as
from any formal treatise on charity;
you will learn as much sound social
and industrial doctrine from Octave
Thanet's stories of farmers and wage
workers as from avowed sociological
and economic studies; and l cordially
recommend the first chapter of Aunt
Jane of Kentucky" for use as a tract
in all families where the men folks
tend to selfish or thoughtless or over
bearing disregard of the rights of their
womankind.
No Shrinking of Duty.
Do not misunderstood me. I have
not the slightest sympathy with those
hysterical and foolish creatures who
wish women to attain to easy lives by
Sinking their duties. l have as hearty
a contempt for the oma who shirks
her duty of bearing and rearing the
children, O, doing her full housewives