Title: The Stewardship of the Soil - Baccalaureate Address
Author: Worst, John H. (John Henry), 1850-1945
Language: English
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STEWARDSHIP OF THE SOIL

WORST



_The_
STEWARDSHIP
OF THE SOIL

[Illustration]

_Address by_

JOHN HENRY WORST

_President of_ NORTH DAKOTA
AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE



_The Stewardship
of the Soil_

BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS BY
JOHN HENRY WORST
PRESIDENT NORTH DAKOTA
AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE

[Illustration]

_Delivered at the Twenty First Annual Commencement of the
North Dakota Agricultural College
Fargo, North Dakota, June Sixth, Nineteen Hundred Fifteen_



[Illustration: JOHN HENRY WORST]



_The Stewardship of the Soil_

_By_ J. H. WORST


Our ambitious young commonwealth, in conjunction with other states
comprising the great Northwest, occupies a commanding position in the
industrial and economic affairs of this nation.

Mines of gold and silver or forests primeval North Dakota does not have;
but from the millions of fertile acres comprising our vast agricultural
empire, we may reap a golden harvest every year that will exceed in
wealth the output of all the golden placers in the western mountains.

The harvest of minerals, however, can be gathered but once. Time will
not restore the precious nuggets.

The forests once harvested can, at great expense, be renewed in the
course of a century; but our harvest of domestic plants and animals
recurs with every passing season to recompense the farmer for his toil
and to enrich the farmer's friends.

What a precious theme is harvest! The hopes, the well-being, the life of
the world is fast bound up in the magic of this single word.

The soil upon which the harvest depends, moreover, is God's benediction
to humanity. Measured by consequences, Heaven has vouchsafed no form of
stewardship that is fraught with such tremendous responsibilities as
this stewardship of the soil. In the final analysis this stewardship
represents the farmer's obligation to society.

And yet sacred as is the soil and binding as is the farmer's obligation
to society, the means for providing the world's food is nevertheless at
his mercy.

It is a well-known fact that the soil can readily be depleted of its
fertility and thus robbed of its strength by a system of exploitation,
commonly referred to as "extensive farming." Too much of our land is
being thus exploited. On the other hand the productiveness of the soil
may be very greatly improved. Denmark, Belgium, Germany, and other
European nations have fully demonstrated, that by the application of
science to the art of agriculture, the productiveness of the soil can be
multiplied almost to the limit of necessity.

_A Progressive Agriculture._ Fortunately Nature has supplied every means
for the development of a progressive and permanent agriculture. It is
also obvious that it is man's privilege, if not his mission, to improve
upon Nature--to substitute quality for mere physical endurance, in
agricultural products.

By the grace of Providence the individuals of the animal and vegetable
kingdoms were not created inflexible in habit or perfect in form, but
they may be changed in character and quality and intrinsic worth at the
will of the intelligent and observing farmer. To this end agricultural
education lends its beneficent influence. Man's dominion over Nature
would be such in name only were it not for the class-room and the
laboratory, for research and investigation; for by these means
scientific knowledge is obtained and diffused and eventually brought to
bear upon the solution of the most vital problems that concern the human
family. These problems center largely around food and clothing. To
supply these necessities an industry is created--the business of
agriculture--the most important industry in all the world. An industry
of such fundamental importance, moreover, should receive from the states
and from the federal government financial consideration in proportion to
its moral and economic importance as well as to the probabilities that
may be entertained for its continued improvement. For abundant as are
earth's natural resources, yet without the aid and direction of human
intelligence they could not supply the world's ever increasing
population with food, clothing and shelter. Complying with known
conditions of natural reciprocity, however, the animal and vegetable
kingdoms submit to whatever modifications become necessary in order to
supply the needs of the human family.

_Nature's Forces Operate Blindly._ Moved, therefore, partly by necessity
and partly by curiosity, the material world has been and is being
continually modified by the ingenuity of man. Undirected, however,
Nature's forces act blindly; hence, produce mainly such qualities in
organic life as endurance, or adaptation to local soil and climatic
conditions. In the animal and vegetable kingdoms the universal demand of
Nature is to perpetuate their species--"to produce after their own
kind." In accordance with this law the humblest plant or animal is
compelled to maintain a perpetual warfare against its fellows for means
of subsistence.

This competition for nourishment is usually so sharp and continuous that
mere existence or endurance rather than excellence or quality, seems to
be the end and aim of natural law. Hence, the strong survive and the
weak perish.

_Beginnings of Agriculture._ Here agriculture begins. By relieving
plants of this intense competition by means of tillage, and by selecting
the most promising for domestication, they are enabled to use all their
energy for the development of those qualities which add to their
intrinsic value, instead of expending it in the struggle for existence.
Given, thus, free access to the soil and sunshine, with needful
nourishment supplied and their fungous or parasitical enemies destroyed,
the domesticated plants yield trustful obedience to the protecting hand
of the husbandman. Freed altogether from the necessity of
self-protection they become prolific and pour into the world's bread
basket in marvelous abundance the seeds--a single one of which would
suffice to answer Nature's law for the propagation of species. This
surplus of yield for which each plant has need of but a single seed, and
more especially this improvement of quality for which the plant has no
concern, is Nature's reciprocal reward for having given her children
gratuitously that protection which otherwise they would have had to
provide for themselves.

Nor is animal life less susceptible of improvement. Between the animal
wild and the animal domesticated--that is whether Nature-bred or
man-bred--the range in quality is as marked as that which separates the
savage from the philosopher.

Nature demands only strength, endurance; but man demands quality and
excellence, and he proceeds scientifically to accomplish his purpose. By
conscious design and a sort of mental architecture the animal to be is
planned, and the picture thus conceived in the brain of the breeder
becomes incarnated in the form, size and character of the animal. Not
only is the animal created with the desired quality as to its parts and
products, but its nature is transformed from fear and ferocity to that
of trust and docility.

For example the descendants of the wild horse are not only changed from
vicious brutes to trustful beasts of burden, but are also differentiated
into many different breeds to meet the demands of strength, speed or
endurance. Specimens of such breeds as the Belgian, Percheron or
Hambletonian exist as monuments to the breeder's art no less renowned
and for more useful purpose than anything in Nature, the likeness of
which the sculptor has wrought in marble or the artist has transferred
from life to canvass.

From the wild buffalo, presumably, the ideal strains of pedigree kine,
for beef or dairy products, have been created as surely and even more
scientifically than the sculptor has immortalized his ideals in granite
or marble.

Thus animal life is to the skillful breeder as clay in the hands of the
potter, and though a supersensitive and artificial generation may look
upon this form of genius as vulgar, it nevertheless is God's work and
the doers thereof are working with God. For without this incarnation of
quality into plant and animal life the world's population could not
supply its fundamental wants nor could civilization rise above the
animal instincts in man.

The farmer, therefore, is a most important personage, and his vocation
the most absolutely needful in all the world. The farmer is in very
truth a creator, certainly a co-creator, improving Nature by the aid of
science, just as the human mind and character are improved by means of
education. And when the prejudice of the ages has been rolled away the
name "farmer" will rank among the most envied names that enrich our
mother tongue. Here, indeed, may be verified the saving: "The first
shall be last and the last shall be first."

While we honor the sculptor, the painter or the poet whose genius
partakes of the immortal, and yet satisfies no hungry mouth, some degree
of honor might well be given to this other sort of genius which has
multiplied human food beyond computation and has otherwise so largely
mitigated the burdens of life.

_Vocational Education._ From the foregoing it is little wonder that the
education of the masses is surely and rapidly gravitating from the
classical to the utilitarian, from the formal to the vocational. The
world's work must be done, and as those whose stewardship is the soil
are compelled to render a combined physical and mental service in order
to discharge their social obligations, they are entitled to education in
harmony with the tasks awaiting them, to the end that they may work
intelligently, hence joyfully.

Agriculture and engineering, therefore, are fundamental vocations when
considered either from the view-point of necessity or the country's
prosperity. By many, however, the spiritual well-being of a people is
considered paramount, and in a sense it is, but a cheerful soul seldom
inhabits a naked or hungry body.

As food, clothing and shelter are absolute necessities, no degree of
culture or religious enthusiasm can render them less needful. Heaven's
choicest physical gift, the soil, provides the means for acquiring these
indispensable necessities, and the vocation that accepts the
responsibility of its stewardship ministers to the physical, as
educators minister to the mental, or the clergy to the spiritual needs
of man. Moreover, in the order of Nature the physical takes precedence,
being primary and basic, and until legitimate physical wants are
supplied, neither mental nor spiritual food can be satisfactorily
assimilated.

A commonwealth, therefore, that educates her children in due proportion
to and in harmony with the demands of her principal industry, acts the
part of wisdom. In this the state becomes the servant of both present
and future generations by training her children for the conservation of
Nature's gifts, while yet multiplying their use for the comfort and
happiness of all the people. If the clergy would preach occasionally
from the book of Nature, they would discover a proximity to and
dependence upon God enjoyed by him who sows and reaps, who cultivates
animals and flowers, who creates things and works miracles as his
ordinary life work, which few others can enjoy. Such themes might not
only be expounded with profit to those who work their fellowmen, but
should also be impressed betimes upon those who work the soil for the
good of their fellowmen.

_The Paramount Problem._ The paramount problem, therefore, is to make
the conditions of rural life desirable--to convert farming into an
enjoyable vocation; to make farm life and its labors a business to be
envied and not despised. The fact is, planning for beauty and comfort in
the city has progressed far and away beyond the country. It now but
remains for the country to catch up and go the city many times better.
This is entirely possible, since the great "out doors" is a country
heritage and ample spaces are available for exterior delights such as
trees, shrubbery and flowers, and for free access to abundance of pure
air and sunshine.

Moreover, we should not forget that we are now living in a new world.
The old agriculture and its associated rural industries have been shaken
to their very foundation. This makes the solution of the rural problem,
to some extent, speculative.

For one thing the country is becoming urbanized. This may prove helpful.
Again it may not. Individualism, however, is giving place more and more
to commercialized enterprise. At the same time the evils of transient
tenantry follow close upon the heels of successful farming, where
farmers rent their land and move to town; and also of unsuccessful
farming, where the mortgage shark eventually becomes possessed of the
land. What the state needs to encourage, therefore, is farm ownership by
the many rather than by the few, and farm ownership rather than farm
tenantry. We must retain on the farm, as farmers, the best type of
American manhood and womanhood or the nation will fall into decay, just
as Rome fell with the decline of her agrarian influence.

The consolidated country school, by rendering obsolete the one room
district school house, is a progressive step toward improved educational
facilities for rural children.

The country church, on the other hand, has become more decadent than
aggressive. This among other rural agencies is not organized in
proportion to its importance. Some progress, however, is being made by
means of social organizations, but the ultimate solution of the rural
problem depends more largely upon education than upon any other single
factor.

_Rural Social Leaders._ Rural social leaders in full sympathy with the
country life movement will find here a fruitful field for earnest
endeavor. To no class should the state look for such leadership, and
with so much assurance, as to the alumni of its Agricultural College.
Educated at public expense and in an institution of higher learning that
stands specifically for all-round rural improvement and rural
patriotism, the students that go out from this college cannot
misinterpret their duties nor fail to understand the responsibilities
they assume as graduates of the North Dakota Agricultural College. Nor
is their field of labor an unenviable one. It may at times seem irksome,
even discouraging, but nevertheless it is the most exalted and dignified
calling to which men and women of special training and culture can
aspire.

To rescue the soil from the indifference and greed and selfishness
wherein this generation unwittingly robs succeeding generations of their
rightful inheritance, and to rescue the very vocation of agriculture
from mercenary interests is a mission worthy of the best leadership and
patriotism of our day. But it must not stop even at this. The public
welfare demands that nearly half the population of the entire country,
and certainly four-fifths of the population of this state, shall
permanently pursue agriculture for a livelihood. This vocation,
therefore, must be made so desirable and satisfying that that number
will joyfully accept it as a matter of free choice. It must be so
developed that it will afford an unsurpassed market for energy and
brains, and so independent of parasitical interests that when two
bushels of wheat are grown where one now grows the producer will receive
the benefit.

_Increased Production Not Sufficient._ Hitherto the agencies for rural
improvement, both state and federal, have directed their energies
chiefly toward increased production. And this with but scant
consideration for profits that should be realized by the producer as a
result of the larger yields. Material prosperity, however, is not a
sufficient motive, except where it assuredly is used to improve the
moral and social conditions of the community life. To double the yield
of crops without doubling the enjoyments of living and improving home
comforts accordingly, will avail but little toward developing rural
conditions that will withstand the competition and false allurements of
the city.

_Urban Degeneracy._ A nation's strength, moreover, is a matter of blood
and brain fiber. Urban degeneracy is an accepted biological fact. The
dissipation, lack of physical exercise in the open air, and high
pressure living and working leaves in its trail a progeny diminishing in
numbers and decadent in those high qualities essential to good
government.

Democracy, as a permanent institution, however, is not yet an assured
fact. The experiment of self-government is still in the making. Its
perpetuity cannot be predicated upon scheming traders, money brokers and
political manipulators, but must depend in the last analysis upon the
solid phlegm and conservatism of its rural districts where men are too
busy with productive labor to scheme for political office or unearned
wealth. In other words, and I speak it with sincerity, the rural
population conserves the real dependable life blood of this nation. It
is an accepted fact that in every crisis of our country's history the
rural population was not only on the side of right, but ready to defend
the nation's honor with their votes or with their blood.

When the nation's debt was appalling and money poured into the national
treasury in but feeble currents, the tariffs that replenished it again
were borne like a young Hercules by the farming class, though they
received but a minimum of its protection. Every influence, therefore,
that tends to exalt agriculture as a profession, and farming as a
desirable mode of life, whether it be intellectual, political, ethical
or spiritual, is for the general welfare.

The time is not far distant, let us hope and pray, when agriculture will
cast off the thralldom of the ages and assert her own. But not until the
sons and daughters of the country, trained for rural social and
industrial service, as you are being trained, assert an aggressive
leadership, with genuine patriotism for the needs of the open country,
will the domination of ulterior interests be removed and agriculture
made free to manage its educational institutions and business affairs,
in part at least, for its own good.

_The Rural School Problem._ Since education is the governing factor,
especially so far as it directs the attitude of rural children toward
rural conditions, the country school should be so redirected and
revitalized as to "stir into action community forces which are now
dormant; and to make the rural school a strong and efficient social
center, working for the upbuilding of all the varied interests of a
healthy rural life."

     "The redirection of rural education means that the school is to
     abandon its city ideals and standards, except as these are
     adaptable to rural as well as to city schools, and to develop its
     instruction with reference to its environment and the local
     interests and needs. The main efforts of its instruction should be
     to put its pupils into sympathetic touch with the rural life about
     them, in which the great majority of them ought to find their
     future homes."--_Cubberley._

The away-from-the-farm-influence of rural education which has in the
past proved a serious handicap to rural progress and open country
pursuits, would thus be materially counteracted.

Quoting Cubberley again:

     "The uniform text-books which have been introduced by law, were
     books written primarily for the city child; the graded course of
     study was a city course of study; the ideals of the school become,
     in large part, city and professional in type; and the city-educated
     and city-trained teachers have talked of the city, over-emphasized
     the affairs of the city, and sighed to get back to the city to
     teach. The subjects of instruction have been formal and
     traditional, and the course of instruction has been designed more
     to prepare for entrance to a city or town high school than for life
     in the open country. So far as the school has been vocational in
     spirit, it has been the city vocations and professions for which it
     has tended to prepare its pupils, and not the vocations of the farm
     and the home."

Then says Roosevelt:

     "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 workshop. Nothing is more needed
     than the best type of an industrial school, the school for
     mechanical industries in the cities and for teaching agriculture in
     the country. 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 most
     other people. We began our existence as a nation of farmers, and in
     every crisis of the past a peculiar dependence has had to be placed
     upon the farming population, and this dependence has hitherto been
     justified."

_The Rural Church Problem._ No permanent rural civilization, however,
can be maintained that will attach the population to the soil with
satisfaction and contentment without provision being made for enjoying
religious services among people of their own kind and class. This
necessitates a social and religious center for every rural community.
The church can and should be made such social center. For economic and
social reasons, however, denominationalism can well be dispensed with,
as such, and just plain Christianity substituted for sectarianism. A
social center thus maintained will stimulate neighborly intercourse and
satisfy the demands of both young and old for religious culture, for
recreation and pastime. Where schools are consolidated the school house
and grounds will answer for all gatherings whether for worship, for the
discussion of civic or neighborhood problems or for recreation and
amusement. For without such neighborhood intercourse, life deteriorates
into a dull routine, and the moral and religious tone of a community,
degenerates. Moreover, under such conditions, young people become
disgusted with its monotony and aimlessness, and seek city employment.

But before the country church can be made an efficient community force,
pastors must be found or created that meet the conditions of country
life. A most excellent city pastor might prove to be a regrettable
misfit in a rural community. Moreover, the modern clergy seem quite as
prone to herd in the towns and cities as the rest of mankind, which
fact has a bad influence on the youth of the country.

Quoting from Rural Life and Education: "The rural minister needs
economic and agricultural knowledge more than theological, that he may
use the economic and agricultural experiences of his people as a basis
for the building-up of their ethical life; he needs educational
knowledge, that he may direct his efforts with the young along good
pedagogical lines; and the church as an institution needs to study
carefully the rural-life problem, and to plan a program of useful
service along good educational and sociological lines. Unless this is
done, the church will bear but little relationship to a living
community; its influence on the young will be small; and its mission of
moral and religious leadership will be forgotten by the people."

_Other Agencies for Rural Improvement._ In addition to providing country
schools and employing rural school teachers as efficient as the best in
the towns, and the country church reawakened and converted into an
efficient institution for progress, the Grange, farmers' clubs, the Y. M.
and Y. W. C. A., the rural library, boys and girls' clubs, farmers'
institutes, woman's clubs, literary and debating societies and amateur
theatricals, of which the Little Country Theatre is the best exponent,
can with profit be incorporated into the life of every rural community
that maintains a social center, and that takes genuine pride in making
country life what the possibilities so readily warrant.

No one of these separate organizations, even though fully developed and
earnestly supported, will altogether satisfy the needs of a community.
No one of them should be over-emphasized for its own sake alone, for
each is but a part of the community need. All are needed. The friends of
each, therefore, should work for all and all work for each, and becoming
thus federated, they will prove to be a positive force and establish,
beyond question, a community spirit satisfactory to old and young alike.

A sufficient number of these rural social institutions to meet the
changed conditions of modern life is as essential as a progressive and
highly contented agriculture; for without such institutions agriculture
will decline until on a level with the peasantry of other and less
favored countries. For just in proportion as agriculture advances or
declines will the prosperity of the people rise or fall, and the
integrity of our government be stable or questionable. This fact has
been clearly demonstrated in the history of nations; hence, stewardship
of the soil embraces not only conservation of its fertility, but the
fostering of such social institutions and educational forces as may be
necessary to support a rural civilization that will minister to all the
physical, mental and spiritual wants of a highly intellectual and
permanent population. Said James A. Garfield:

     "The higher education of the village and city youth, together with
     a modicum of the country youth, with only the fifth to eighth grade
     for the best blood of the state may stand for the educator's
     ideals, but it is bad for the country as a whole. It tends to make
     aristocrats of the poorest and slaves of the best blood. Education
     is for all, not for a favored few."

_The Morrill Act._ The Morrill Act of 1862 was the first important step
toward the emancipation of agriculture. The establishment of the Land
Grant Colleges was the biggest piece of constructive legislation that
Congress has enacted during the past century. By means of higher
education thus redirected and vitalized, industrial independence will
ultimately be realized. But the work moves slowly. However, in spite of
ridicule and unmerited handicaps, and even the contempt of too many of
the farming class, these institutions have grown steadily in influence
and power.

The North Dakota Agricultural College directs its energies toward a
system of education that at once affords all the means of culture and
character building that collegiate courses of study can offer, yet
without departing materially from giving special emphasis to those
subjects which are directly related to the homes and the chief industry
of the state.

The purpose is not only to increase production as a means of profit and
to render helpful social service, but to make farm life and rural
conditions so agreeable and satisfying that the choice of agricultural
pursuits, on the part of educated young people, will prove as popular
and inviting as that of any other industry or profession. This is not an
impossibility. From an educational view-point no vocation exceeds
agriculture in the material available for calling out the best there is
in man, spiritually or intellectually. From a social view-point, the
country represents the purest and most neighborly sympathies. And from
an industrial view-point it is the state's support and should be the
state's pride. North Dakota will expand in wealth and influence,
therefore, in proportion as she throws wide open the door of
agricultural opportunity for the young people of the state. This she can
best accomplish by means of public education expressed in terms of rural
life.

After twenty years of service as President of your Agricultural College,
I find that my chief gratification comes from having associated daily
with a loyal and dependable faculty and with so many clean, ambitious
and sympathetic young men and women.

In you and the thousands of Agricultural College students scattered over
this and adjoining states, many of them having already won enviable
distinction by their public services, and all giving evidence of most
exemplary citizenship, I not only take sincere pride but also find my
chief reward. Others may scheme for wealth or fame, but for one at my
time in life, I would not exchange the friendship of the Agricultural
College student body, past and present, for earthly riches or personal
honor.

I have implicit faith in the future of our Agricultural College as I
have in this great agricultural state. Her broad acres are being rapidly
occupied by a progressive and enterprising husbandry. Her cities and
villages keep pace with her rural development. The dreams of the
pioneers are fast becoming realities. The erstwhile home of the red
man and the feeding ground of the bison, are destined soon to be thickly
dotted over with luxurious farmsteads, made beautiful by the arts of
civilization and prosperous by the skill and industry of a happy and
contented rural population.

Students of the Agricultural College, your mission lies in this
direction. Your influence upon the future development of this state will
be as certain as it will be beneficient. The door of opportunity stands
ajar, inviting you to enter and share the blessings that reward the
industrious and reap the honors that crown the lives of those whose
stewardship has been faithfully kept. May no temptation ever swerve you
from loyalty to the cause which your alma mater represents. Too often
the enemies of industrial freedom capture with the blandishments of
vanity, the trusted leaders of reform.

Let your hearts, therefore, ever beat true for the best there may be in
store for those whose sweat fertilizes the business of the state. The
cause of the people should ever be your cause, and having received your
education largely at their expense, spare not a generous service in
return for the academic honors that now await you.





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