Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1909-05-28

President Roosevelt says farmers
do not magnify their own industry.
They mentally class themselves as be-
hind the townsman, and their employ
ment as behind the townsman, where
as, on the contrary, farming calls for
far more intelligence and far more
knowledge than nine-tenths of the oc-
equations of townsmen. The farmer
must have kind of all round intelli-
gence, while in the towns, owing to
the specialization of employments,
the work done is almost invariably
more stupid and UNMARRIED than the
farmers work. And the townsman is
shut out from the earth, from the
contact with that old, mysterious ma
ture, the pregnant soil, the sun, the
air, the things that are as God fash
Toned them, when He made them as
companions for man before man had
fallen and while he was still in the
golden world. There is no labor to
which man may set his hands which
is more elemental or more dignifed
than the labor of the agriculturist.'
The Desirable Life.
The world will yet turn to this as
the desirable life, and it will educate
its children for that life. They will
come out of the civilization of cities
and will build up a rural civilization.
The last effect of culture, of litera-
ture, and art, will be to beget their
own extinction, because they will
have brought men to listen to higher
voices than their own, to appreciate a
Magician of the Beautiful greater
than ever painted dreams of angels
on chapel roof or palace wall, and
men will listen to the elemental
voices of nature, and feel awe and
ecstasy in the presence of the angels
of Light and Air.
The Making of Men and Women.
So the greatest president America
has had since Lincoln closes his pc
Rod of office with an urgent message
to his nation to solve this problem of
rural life and the making of men and
women. He seems to have had it in
his mind to aid in the fashiOning of
that race which the greatest Ameri-
can poet foresaw when he announced
"myriads of youths, beautiful, gigan-
tic, and sweet blooded." He deals
with high things, and he is right, for
it is the end which inspires, and he
is practical enough to point out in de-
tail the ways and means by which
this end is to be brought about. He
draws the attention of the intellect
of America to this problem, and he
asks it to set itself to solve it. But
most of all he talks to the farmers
themselves, and tells them as one who
has lived in the center of things,
and who has guaged all the currents
and the tendencies of the economic
and social life of his time, that they
must make a fight to maintain and
preserve a high place in the nation.
They must organize themselves.
They must cooperate and be able to
meet the trusts on equal terms. They
must regard their work as the arts
tocracy of all labor, and have pride
in it. By organization they will be
able to retain some surplus of the
wealth they create, and can apply
that either by individual Or commun-
al standard of living. He promises
them the state will do its part. 1t is
no duty of the state to organize for
business purposes, but it is the duty
of the state to educate, and he speaks
of reformed rural schools, with a sys-
TEN Of education conceived on rural
interests.