The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1907-12-04

TO Its usefulness. NO department or the
government, however, has more en-
phatically indicated its usefulness and
none save the post office department
comes SO continually and intimately into
touch with the people The two citizens
whose welfare is in the aggregate most
vital to the welfare of the nation, and
therefore to the welfare of all other citi-
zens are the wage-worker who does
manual labor and the tiller of the soil,
the farmer. There are, of course, kinds
of labor where the work must be purely
mental, and there are other kinds of
labor where. under existing conditions,
very little demand indeed is made upon
the mind though l am glad to say that
the proportion of men engaged in this
kind of work is diminishing. But in any
community with the solid healthy quail
ties which make up really great nation
the bulk of the people should do work
which calls for the exercise of both body
and mind. Progress can not permanently
exist in the abandonment of physical
labor, but in the development of physical
labor, so that it shall represent more and
more the work of the trained mind in the
trained body Our school system is
gravely defective in so far as it puts a
premium upon mere literary training and
tends therefore to train the boy away
from the farm and the workshop. Moth
ing is more needed than the best type of
Industrial school, the school for me-
chanical industries in the city. the school
for practically teaching agriculture in the
country. The calling of the skilled tiller
of the soil, the calling of the skilled me-
chanic. should alike be recognized as
professions, just as emphatically as the
callings of lawyer, doctor. merchant, or
clerk. The schools should recognize this
fact and it should equally be recognized
i'm popular opinion. The young man who
has the farsightedness and courage to
recognize it and get over the idea that
it makes difference whether what he
earns is called salary or wages and who
refuses to enter the crowded field of the
so-called professions. and takes to con-
st.uctive industry instead is reasonably
sure of an ample reward in earnings, in
health, in opportunity to marry early
and to establish home with a fair
amount of freedom from worry. 1t
should be one of our prime objects to put
both the farmer and the mechanic on a
higher plane of efficiency and reward, so
as to increase their effectiveness in the
economic world, and therefore the dig
nifty, the remuneration, and the power of
their positions in the social world.
No growth of cities, no growth of
wealth, can make up for any loss in
either the number or the character of the
farming population. We of the United
States should realize this above almost all
other peoples. We began our existence as
Il nation of farmers, and in every great
crisis of the past peculiar dependence
has had to be placed upon the farming
population; and this dependence has
hitherto been justified. But it can not be
justified in the future if agriculture is
permitted to sink in the scale as COM
pared with other employments. We can
not afford to lose that prominently typ-
cal American, the farmer who owns his
own medium-sized farm. To have his
place taken by either a class of small
peasant proprietors, or by class of great
landlords with tenant-farmed estates
would be a veritable calamity. The
growth of our cities is a good thing but
only in so far as it does not mean q
growth at the expense of the country
farmer. We must welcome the rise of
physical sciences in their application to
agricultural practices, and we must do all
we can to render country conditions more
easy and pleasant. There are forces
which now tend to bring about both these
results, but they are, as yet, in their in
fancy.
Great Good Accomplished
by Department of Agriculture.
The national government through the
department of agriculture should do all
it can by joining with the state govern
ments and with independent associations
of farmers to encourage the growth in
the open farming country of such insti-
tutional and social movements as will
meet the demand of the best type of
farmers, both for the improvement of
their farms and for the betterment of
the life itself The department of agri-
culture has in many places, perhaps eSpe-
cially in certain districts of the south, ac-
complished an extraordinary amount by
cooperating with and teaching the farm
ers through their associations, on their
own soil, how to increase their income
by managing their farms better than
they were hitherto managed. The farm
er must not lose his independence, his
initiative, his rugged self-reliance, yet
he must learn to work in the heartiest
cooperation with his fellows, exactly as
the business man has learned to work
and he must prepare to use to constantly
better advantage the knowledge that can
be obtained from agricultural colleges,
while he must insist upon practical cur
riculum in the schools in which his chill
dren are taught. The department of ag-
riculture and the department of com
merce and labor both deal with the fun
damental needs of our people in the pro-
duction of raw material and its manufac-
ture and distribution, and, therefore, with
the welfare of those who produce 1t in
the raw state, and of those who manu-
facture and distribute 1t. The depart
ment of commerce and labor has but re-
Gently been founded, but has already
justified it's existence; while the depart
ment of agriculture yields to no other in
the government in the practical benefits
which 1t produces in proportion to the
public money expended. 1t must con-
tinue in the future to deal with growing
crops as it has dealt in the past, but 1t
must still further extend it's field of use
fitness hereafter by dealing with live
men. through a far-reaching study and
treatment of the problems of farm life,
alike from the Industrial and economic
and social standpoint. Farmers must Co
operate with one another and with the
government, and the government can best
give it's aid through associations of farm
ers, SO as to deliver to the farmer the
large body of agricultural knowledge
which has been accumulated by the ma
tional and state governments and by the
agricultural colleges and schools.
The grain producing industry of the
country, one of the most important in
the United States, deserves special con-
sideration at the hands of the congress.
Our grain is sold almost exclusively by
grades. To secure satisfactory results
in our home markets and to facilitate
our trade abroad, these grades should APP
proSimate the highest degree of uniform.