deprecated, and is the natural sequence of this same popular idea of fitting the young to be parasites on the body politic.

Labor is not only the foundation of all wealth, but it is also the foundation of all knowledge; the developer of all wisdom.

To fill a boy full of vague ideas that he has not had time, nor the physical endurance to digest, is a crime, and misleads many a youth into the idea that he is wise because he has learned a great deal. He gets extravagant ideas of his ability, and is often a mortification to his best friends.

There is not so much difference in the amount of knowledge individuals possess as there is in their diversity of knowledge, and their power of utilizing what they do know so as to impress it upon others.

Labor seems to develop this faculty, and is the only thing that puts on the finishing stroke to this availability.

A good physical development must be obtained, time taken to digest and apply, as knowledge is gained, and to this end labor and a free intercourse with nature lend the most helpful hands.

Man is like a bladder in this, that he is worth only that which there is in him. If educated so as to have accumulated only that which is worthless, because he can not utilize it, then, like the bladder, he must be taken for what there is in him that can be made useful.

A hoe or an axe is not valuable alone for the easing of the arm, but chiefly for the perfection of the work a man is able to perform with it. So of text-books. The prime idea of school routine should be thoroughness and perfection of work; this means such an arrangement and use of the textbook that the pupil shall be made to use his brain,-if he has any. If he has little brain there is but little use in trying to fill it, and as little use of filling any brain without its proper training. It will be only like the bladder filled with air, of no value. Many of our text-books attempt to make it so easy, that it is not fixed. There is no chance for mental labor; and without labor there is no mental development.

The mind may be filled with vague ideas; indeed, it may be full of definitions, and be able to demonstrate verbatim

difficult theorems and still there be no great amount of mental strength obtained.

A business education should be at the command of every American citizen, our common schools brought up to a higher standard, our public moneys used in that direction, and no higher education encouraged except as the seeker therefor manifests a capability and by perseverance and labor obtains it.

Were this policy pursued instead of the popular one of educating every boy for the professions, or for parasitical occupations, our people would be better and happier, if not richer.

Extremes are always wrong; so in this idea of giving every child a college course, thus unfitting many in their castes and habits for anything which they are by nature qualified for.

Quite a percentage of college graduates die in the poor house; large numbers are supported by the wealth or charity of their friends; many are in politics; in literary pursuits; in the professions, and a very few in business or on the farm. If a prosperous community could be made up of such, then all should have the college course.

There is no harm in possessing the culture of a college course; on the contrary there is great good and much satisfaction in it, to say the least; but the trouble is there is not enough of the practical accompanying it, which embodies physical as well as mental labor; or if there has been, it is co-extensive with the few physical and mental laborers who have made their mark in after life. With those who were educated by the charity of their friends, or the benevolence of the state, most of them are heard of no more after their last college oration is pronounced.

An eminent writer, in his article entitled "Criticism and Creation," speaking of Oxford, says: "For those on this side of graduation, whose manhood is harnessed into the duties of the place, what between the routine of work and the atmosphere of omni-present criticism, in which life is lived here, original production becomes almost an impossibility. Any one who may feel within him the stirring creative impulse, if he does not wish to have it frozen at its

source, must, before he can create, leave the air of academic circles." In all colleges there is a lack of that originality, which, alone, in after life, will make an impression.

If morality was co-extensive with literary attainments, then the present mania to shirk labor (in college and out) by all conceivable ways, including the most harmful one of using only the ideas of others, the popular ideas of a higher education for all would be less injurious.

It takes time to develop a child into a useful man, the same as it does a colt into a valuable and trusty horse. Training alone will not do it; it can't be well done in too short a space of time, nor by crowding labor on him too fast, nor too early. Our boys are men when in their teens. The forcing theory pervades all society. If a youth is not up in his classes with his fellows, he is voted by all to be a dumhead, and thus he is discouraged, and others overestimated.

The promising lad is one who cares not to consult a thermometer before going out; who would as lief be kissed by the north wind as by any girl in christendom; who would willingly exchange all the overcoats in the world for a pair of skates or a sled; who takes to the water like a duck; to the mud like an eel, and to the sun like an American citizen of African descent.

Thriftiness is not always indicative of the best mental development, but is a sure indicator of a certain degree of it; for without thought and laborious application no man is a financial success. These develop the mental faculties, and the mind is made thoroughly practical, capable of appropriating to every day all such means as are at hand.

Such a person is a good business man, and it is yet to be proved that it does not require a greater diversity of talent to be a good farmer or business man than it does to fill almost any other station in life.

"The man who succeeds is he who feels impelled by dire necessity to struggle; who feels that upon his success everything depends. Imbued with a sense of responsibility, he strives, and strives successfully. In fact he is successful in proportion as he has the sense of responsibility."

The prevailing sentiment seems to be that the theorist is

the man of brain. This is true in some instances, but with this theory there is also practicability.

Mental development is the result of sturdy, original thought and application, coupled with labor. It is the result of no stereotyped pumping into, nor can it be thus accomplished.

It is dependent as a national development on social relations, popular ideas, and the manner in which the cause of education is fostered by the state.

To make this strong, general and practical for the general welfare, I have long thought that if the popular ideas of labor could be modified so as to make it more fashionable for the young to work, and the public moneys were all bestowed upon the common schools alone, the general welfare would be enhanced.

The principles of popular government and free schools are based on the idea of the greatest good to the greatest number. The state is not able to give the entire population a college course, nor would it be advantageous, for reasons that are evident. That a good education, such as our common schools might be able to give, would be desirable and advantageous to the public no one doubts. So I maintain that a better policy would be for the state to make appropriations for school purposes to these alone, and compel every child, not demented, to be sent thereto for a definite period, or until he had made a certain advancement in his studies.

It is the popular idea that the highest education possible should be attained, not considering what the education should consist.of.

Our state is full of children that are eager for knowledge, in many places where the people are poor, and if the common schools were as thick and maintained as long each year as they should be, the local taxes for the same would be unbearable; consequently they have school only for a few months in the year and the children are growing up to be men and women uneducated and not properly fitted to be citizens of a free republic.

Habits of mature thought and self-control are the result of the steady purpose bred of daily toil, and who so accessible to

these as the children of the poor, who alone now suffer from the want of educational advantages.

I have thrown these ideas together, not because we are all agreed, nor because the subject is most appropriate for a convention of this sort, but for your criticism and discussion, thinking that thereby we as farmers might be enabled to assist in correcting some of the errors in the public sentiment named.

I have done it also for the reason that while I believe in a higher education, and that no person that delights in it can be the worse for any mental training that he may have obtained either in college or otherwise, still I protest against its being done as it is much of the time at the expense of utility and practicability, thus unfitting instead of fitting for usefulness in after life.

I protest against the present popular idea (especially among teachers) of developing everything with or without labor, and no matter whether at the expense of the recipient or

not.

I maintain that mental development is on the principle that if I own a dollar that will be of any real value to me, I must first earn it. So if I get an idea that will be of any real value to me or to the world, it must be the result of mental toil and mature thought; the result of personal exertion; and that the higher types, such as have made reputations that have been handed down to posterity and that will be known and revered in ages to come, are only the result of personal labor on the part of the possessor thereof and not the free gift of any save the god labor.

DISCUSSION.

Mr. John W. Hinton, Milwaukee-Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen: My friend is traveling on the same track that I have been traveling on for some time. I am not going to let him crowd me off, and I will not let him be crowded off if I can help it. I think on the road he is traveling we shall walk arm in arm. In illustration of one point that he made, and he made it well, I recollect reading in one of Samuel Smyles' works a very apt illustration of