Thursday Evening, Senate Chamber.

Mrs. Janet B. Day again favored an appreciative audience with a selection from Whittier, also gave "Gossip of the Flowers." She was heartily encored, and responded with "My Philosophy," by James Whitcomb Riley.

LOCAL SOCIETIES AND THEIR BENEFITS.

Mrs. Lizzie Tripp, La Crosse.

When I was asked by your secretary to represent our society and also to prepare a paper for this meeting, I was well aware that he had made a great mistake as regards a writer and a horticulturist, as my knowledge of horticulture has been limited, and for me to undertake to write and read a paper in that line to this audience of men and women who have made fruit and flowers their study for years, would result in utter failure.

The subject I have chosen to write upon is one that should interest every tiller of the soil, that of Local Societies and their benefits.

For an introduction I will give you a short sketch of the society I represent, namely, the La Crosse County Horticultural, Agricultural and Dairy Association.

Some twenty years ago, a little grange was started in our neighborhood, where we used to meet every two weeks, write, read and discuss the different topics of farming. Other granges were organized and the right hand of fellowship was extended all over the county. After some ten years of successful meetings, the grange fever began to wane and the charter was given up. But a number of the members were not satisfied without a farmers' club of some kind, in fact it had become a school to them and they often wished for the opinion of their fellow farmers on different questions in farming. They longed for those social meetings and the granger's grip again, so, with a few of the horticulturists, they organized the so

ciety we have now. The work has been taken up by younger members, and younger hands are plying the oars, but many of the same old patrons of husbandry who signed the charter in 1874, are standing firmly at the helm, steering our craft in the right direction.

Though time has plowed deep furrows in their cheeks and age has silvered their hair, yet their hearts are as young and their memories as fresh as twenty years ago.

"They lived not hermit lives, but oft

In social converse met,

And fires of love were kindled then
That burn on warmly yet."

In these meetings you will find the mother with her crowing babe, and old age leaning on his cane; there you will find the farmer with his wife, his sons and daughters, all have met for a social, good time. "Peace and Good Will" is our motto, "Industry and Uprightness" our watchwords.

Now, my friends, with this picture before you, I need not tell you what benefit is derived socially. Sociability and friendship, what is life worth without them? They help us over the rough places, lighten life's burdens, and make us better men and better women.

As to the financial benefit, were you to ask me the exact amount in dollars and cents that is gained by these local meeting, I would be unable to tell. And so would the parent, who, day by day denies himself many a luxury and often necessity that his children may have an education, fully satisfied that there is a great gain, as a reward for their self-denial.

Is it not a financial gain for the farmers to meet and discuss the past year's crops, that he may know what is the best crops and the best methods of cultivation in case of another drouth? Is it not a gain to know why one neighbor is reaping large crops of grain and berries, while another is scarcely paying expenses? There is a reason for all this, and the local meeting is the place to find it all out. The greatest gain is in the awakening of new interest in our vocation, that we may give it more thought and study than we have hitherto. Do not think for one moment that I mean that the farmers of today do not study or think. When we find men and women of great

learning grasping for more knowledge, and, like Napoleon of old, wishing for more worlds to conquer, should we be satisfied? Have we finished our education? Have we gained all the knowledge there is to be gained in our business? I answer no. There is not a man or woman on the face of this globe that has finished his or her education in this great study of nature and her products.

The question is often asked, what part do the ladies take in these meetings? In our society the ladies are active members. At nearly every meeting we have papers prepared and read by them. They often take part, and are as much interested in the discussions as the gentlemen. In fact we are given equal rights, which is a great satisfaction to the most of us. Our ladies are thoroughly interested in this work, and why should they not be? Is it not the vocation of their fathers and husbands? God surely intended woman should be interested in farming, for away back we find Eve, as a horticulturist, very much interested in the fruits in the garden of Eden. We find Ruth, the Moabite, as an agriculturist, gleaning in the harvest fields of Boaz; we find Rachel, as a shepherdess, herding her father's flocks by the well of Sharon. They were not ashamed of their husband's or father's calling, why should you or I be?

Sisters, I stand here tonight to plead with you to take an interest in these meetings; it stands largely with you whether they shall be a success or not. Where women have taken up church work or work of reform and become thoroughly interested, they have achieved success; they have given up home and many a sweet in life to better the world's condition. But I am not asking you to deny yourselves anything, but to bring more sunshine into your lives by helping to organize and maintaining these societies all over our land.

Let us help our brothers to elevate our calling, that the coming generation may feel that it is a noble work and worthy of the world's respect.

Get the girls interested as well as the boys. Often when I hear the short course in agriculture spoken of in the highest terms, and the young men being urged to attend, I always want to say, send your young women also; it will not make

them any the less ladies to understand every line and precept of farming. That knowledge may some day become very useful, and is easily carried around.

How often have we seen the husband taken away, and the wife left with her fatherless children, without any knowledge of farming? What is the consequence? Farm runs down; machinery goes to pieces; fences tumble down, everything goes to wreck. In a few years she must sell to save the little that is left, move to town, where the children find employment in factory or shop, where they seldom have the opportunity to advance above day laborer. Why all this? Simply because the mother had not taken interest in, or availed herself of, the knowledge within her grasp. Or perhaps she may be one of the class that does not believe that farming is a fit vocation for a woman, and that the agricultural college is not a very refined school for a lady. If the agricultural college is not fit for a lady, what must be the dissecting rooms of a medical school, or the criminal bar of the law college? And still we find women all over this land studying for these and many other professions and retaining their ladyhood.

Kind friends, I am glad to say that I belong to what I believe to be the most peaceful and industrious class of people in the United States today-the farmer. Let us not be satisfied with that, while there is yet so much to learn.

Do you not think if there was a good, flourishing society in each of the seventy counties in the state of Wisconsin, that their influence would be for good? That their power would be felt? Do you not think if they were to knock at the doors of our legislature for laws in their interest that they would be heard? We are told in “Union there is strength," and if united we would stand our strength would be felt the length and breadth of this land. It is my prayer, should the farmer ever realize the power that lies within his hand, that he may use and not abuse the power that God has given him.

"Yes, brothers of the plow,

The nations must be fed,

And Heaven gives the power to
The hand that holds the bread."

HIGHER EDUCATION OF WOMEN.

Vie H. Campbell, Evansville.

If every child has a right to be well born, every child has an unquestionable right to be well trained, so that the largest possible latitude may be given to the inherent powers of the individual. That countless thousands are deprived of this right, is strong proof of an erroneous system that stands out in striking contrast to our so-called "higher civilization."

Education means a drawing out of every human faculty, and by its means an all-aroundness is developed. Without this development a symmetrical character is an impossibility, with it all characters may be of that well-rounded type that is essential to an approximation to the estate of perfection.

If the majority of the people were asked to define the term education, the answer would be, "it is the improvement of the mind." A careful consideration of the question will demonstrate the incorrectness of the reply, and yet an investigation of the system in vogue in our schools shows that it is the common acceptance of the term. The answer is vague and uncertain, because it does not take us one step beyond the starting point.

If I were to make the statement that education means training the eye and drilling the hand for the purpose of producing a work of art, you would tell me that my theory is a fallacious one, because such an education would not develop all of the latent talent of the child; that the system is unjust to her because it cultivates some of her faculties at the expense of others. Instances illustrating the proof of these statements are found on every hand. People educated in one direction, like parts of a machine, when obliged to depend upon their own resources are almost helpless, and are of little value in this practical work-a-day world; they are like the housewife's plants which she has kept standing in one position until they have develpoed a one-sidedness in which there is no symmetry; beautiful they are if you only look upon the one side, but bare and unsightly if you look at the other side.