The stewardship of the soil

The
STEWARDSHIP

OF THE SOIL

Address by
JOHN HENRY WORST

President of NORTH DAKOTA
AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE

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Che Stewardship
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BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS BY

JOHN HENRY WORST
PRESIDENT NORTH DAKOTA
AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE

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Delivered at the CGwenty First Annual Commencement of the

North Dakota Agricultural College

Fargo, North Dakota, June Sixth, Nineteen Hundred Fifteen

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JOHN HENRY WORST

Ghe Stewardship of the Soil

By J. H. WORST

Our ambitious young commonwealth, in con-
junction with other states comprising the great
Northwest, occupies a commanding position in
the industrial and economie 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 gath-
ered but once. Time will not restore the precious
nuggets.

The forests once harvested can, at great ex-
pense, 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 magie of this single word.

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

Page Seven

And vet 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
merey.

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 Huropean nations have fully demon-
strated 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 Na-
ture has supplied every means for the develop-
ment 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 substi-
tute quality for mere physical endurance, in agri-
cultural products.

By the grace of Providence the individuals of
the animal and vegetable kingdoms were not creat-
ed inflexible in habit or perfect in form, but they
may be changed in character and quality and in-
trinsic worth at the will of the intelligent and ob-
serving farmer. T’o this end agricultural educa-
tion 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 re-
search 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

Page Eight

industry is created—the business of agriculture—
the most important industry in all the world. An
industry of such fundamental importance, more-
over, should receive from the states and from the
federal government financial consideration in pro-
portion to its moral and economic importance as
well as to the probabilities that may be entertain-
ed for its continued improvement. For abundant
as are earth’s natural resourees, yet without the
aid and direction of human intelligence they could
not suppl* 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 euri-
osity, the material world has been and is being
continually modified by the ingenuity of man. Un-
directed, however, Nature’s forees act blindly;
hence, produce mainly such qualities in organic
life as endurance, or adaptation to loeal soil and
elimatie 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 en-
durance 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 compe-

Page Nine

tition by means of tillage, and by selecting the
most promising for domestication, they are en-
abled 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 destroved,
the domesticated plants yield trustful obedience
to the protecting hand of the hesbandman. 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 Na-
ture’s law for the propagation of species. This
surplus of vield for which each plant has need of
but a single seed, and more especially this im-
provement of quality for which the plant has no
concern, 1s Nature’s reciprocal reward for havine
given her children gratuitously that protecticn
which otherwise they would have had to provide
for themselves.

Nor is animal life Jess susceptible of improve-
ment. 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 seperates the savage from the phi-
losopher.

Nature demands only strength, endurance; but
man demands quality and excellence, and he pro-
ceeds 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 in-
earnated 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

Page Ten

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 trust-
ful 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 Hamble-
tonian 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 prod-
ucts, have been created as surely and even more
scientifically than the seulptor 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 su-
persensitive and artificial generation may look up-
on 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
eould 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 edu-
cation. And when the prejudice of the ages has
been rolled away the name ‘‘farmer’’ will vank
among the most envied names that enrich our

Page Eleven

mother tongue. Here, indeed, may be verified the
saving: ‘*The first shall be last and the last shall
be first.’’

While we honor the seulptor, 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 miti-
gated 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
10 the utilitarian, from the formal to the voeation-
al. The world’s work must be done, and as those
whose stewardship is the soil are compelled to
render a combined physieal 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 jovfully.

Agriculture and. engineering, therefore, are
fundamental voeations when considered eitier
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 ean render them less needful.
Heaven’s choicest physical gift, the soil, provides
the means for aequiring these indispensable neces-
sities, and the vocation that accepts the respon-
sibility of its stewardship ministers to the physic-
al, as educators minister to the mental, or the
clergy to the spiritual needs of man. Moreover,

Page Twelve

in the order of Nature the physical takes pre-
cedence, being primary and basic, and until legiti-
mate physical wants are supplied neither mental
nor spiritual food can be satisfactorily assimi-
lated.

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 Na-
ture’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 ereates thines 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
eatch 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 avail-
able for exterior delights such as trees, shrubbery
and flowers, and for free access to abundance of
pure air and sunshine.

Page Thirteen

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 urban-
ized. ‘Chis 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 farm-
ers rent their land and move to town; and also of
unsuceessful farming, where the mortgage shark
eventually becomes possessed of the land. What
the state needs to eneourage, 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
tvpe of American manhood and womanhood or
the nation will fall into decay, just as Rome fell
with the deeline 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 ehureh, on the other hand, has be-
come more decadent than aggressive. This among
other rural agencies is not organized in propor-
tion to its importance. Some progress, however,
is being made by means of social organizations,
but the ultimate solution of the rural problem de-
pends more largely upon edueation than upon any
other sinele 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

Page Fourteen

no ¢lass should the state look for such leadership,
and with so much assurance, as to the alumni of
its Agricultural College. Educated at publie ex-
pense and in an institution of higher learning that
stands specifically for all-round rural improve-
ment 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 whieh men and
women of special training and culture can aspire.

To reseue the soil from the indifference and
greed and selfishness wherein this generation un-
wittingly robs sueceeding generations of their
rightful inheritance, and to rescue the very voea-
tion of agriculture from mereenary interests is
a mission worthy of the best leadership and pa-
triotism of onr day. But it must not stop even at
this. The publie 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 desir-
able 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 pro-
ducer will receive the benefit.

Increased Production Not Sufficient. Wither-
to the agencies for rural improvement, both state
and federal, have directed their energies chiefly
toward increased production. And this with but

Page Fifteen

secant consideration for profits that should be real-
ized by the producer as a result of the larger
vields. Material prosperity, however, is not a suf-
ficient 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 im-
proving home comforts accordingly, will avail but
little toward developing rural conditions that will
withstand the competition and false allurements
of the city.

Urban Degeneracu. A nation’s strength, more-
over, 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, how-
ever, is not vet an assured fact. The experiment
cf self-government is still in the making. Its per-
petuity cannot be predicated upon scheming trad-
ers, 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
hfe 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

Page Sixteen

feeble currents, the tariffs that replenished it
again were borne like a young Hercules by the
farming class, though they received but a mini-
mum of its protection. Every influence, therefore,
that tends to exalt agriculture as a profession,
and farming as a desirable mode of hfe, 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 be-
ing 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 affawrs,
in part at least, for its own good.

The Rural School Problem. Since edueation 1s
the governing factor, especially so far as it directs
the attitude of rural children toward rural condi-
tions, the country school should be so redirected
and revitalized as to ‘‘stir into action community
forees which are now dormant; and to make the
rural school a strong and efficient social center,
working for the upbuilding of all the varied in-
terests of a healthy rural life.’’

‘‘PThe 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 in-
struction with reference to its environment and
the local interests and needs. The main efforts
of its instruction should be to put its pupils into
sympathetie touch with the rural life about them,
in which the great majority of them ought to find
their future homes.’’—Cubberley.

Page Seventeen

The away-frem-the-farm-influence of rural
education which has in the past proved a serious
handicap to rural progress and open country pur-
suits, 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, eity and professional in
type; and the city-educated and ecity-trained teach-
ers 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 voeational in spirit, it has been the
city vocations and professions for which it has
tended to prepare its pupils, and not the voca-
tions 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, ean be maintained that
will attach the population to the soil with satis-
faction and contentment without provision being
made for enjoying religious services among

Page Eighteen

people of their own kind and class. This necessi-
tates a social and religious center for every rural
community. The chureh can and should be made
such social center. For economic and social rea-
sons, however, denominationalism can well be dis-
pensed 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 civie or
neighborhood problems or for recreation and
amusement. For without such neighborhood in-
tercourse, life deteriorates into a dull routine,
and the moral and religious tone of a community,
degenerates. Moreover, under such conditions,
voung people become disgusted with its monotony
and aimlessness, and seek city employment.

But before the country chureh 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. More-
over, the modern clergy seem quite as prone to
herd in the towns and cities as the rest of man-
kind, which faet has a bad influence on the vouth
of the eountry.

(Quoting from Rural Life and Education: ‘*‘The
rural minister needs economic and agricultural
knowledge more than theological, that he may use
the economie and agricultural experiences of his
people as a basis for the building-up of their
ethieal life; he needs edueational knowledge, that
he may direct his efforts with the voung along
good pedagogical lines; and the church as an in-

Page Nineteen

stitution needs to study carefully the rural-life
problem, and to plan a program of useful service
along good educational and sociological lines. Un-
less this is done, the echureh 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 employ-
ing rural school teachers as efficient as the best
in the towns, and the country chureh reawakened
and converted into an efficient institution for prog-
ress, 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 ex-
ponent, ean with profit be incorporated into the
life of every rural community that maintains a
social center, and that takes genuine pride in mak-
ing 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 com-
munity 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 foree and establish, beyond
question, a community spirit satisfactory to old
and young alike.

A sufficient number of these rural social insti-
tutions to meet the changed conditions of modern
life is as essential as a progressive and highly

Page Twenty

contented agriculture; for without such institu-
tions 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 demon-
strated in the history of nations; hence, steward-
ship of the soil embraces not only conservation of
its fertility, but the fostering of such social in-
stitutions and educational forces as may be neces-
sary to support a rural civilization that will min-
ister to all the physical, mental and spiritual wants
ef 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 ecu-
eator’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 construc-
tive legislation that Congress has enacted during
the past century. By means of higher education
thus redirected and vitalized, industrial inde-
pendence 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 energics toward a system of education that at
once affords all the means of culture and character

Page Twenty-one

building that collegiate courses of study can offer,
yet without departing materially from giving
special emphasis to those subjects which are di-
rectly 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 voeation exceeds agriculture in the ma-
terial available for calling out the best there is in
man, spiritually or intellectually. From a social
viewpoint, the country represents the purest and
most neighborly sympathies. And from an in-
dustrial viewpoint it is the state’s support and
should be the state’s pride. North Dakota will
expand in wealth and influence, therefore, in pro-
portion as she throws wide open the door of agri-
eultural opportunity for the young people of the
state. This she can best accomplish by means of
public edueation expressed in terms of rural life.

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

In you and the thousands of Agricultural Col-
iege students seattered 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 sineere pride but also find my chief reward.
Others may scheme for wealth or fame, but for

Page Twenty-two

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 per-
sonal honor.

T have implicit faith in the future of our Agri-
cultural College as I have in this great agricul-
tural state. Her broad acres are being rapidly
occupied by a progressive and enterprising hus-
bandry. Her cities and villages keep pace with
her rural development. The dreams of. the
ploneers are fast becoming realities. The erst-
while 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, vour
mission lies in this direction. Your influence up-
on the future development of this state will be as
certain as it will be beneficient. The door of op-
portunity 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 vour alma mater represents. Too
often the enemies of industrial freedom eapture
with the blandishments of vanity, the trusted
leaders of reform

Let your hearts, therefore, ever beat true for
the best there may he 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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