cing to the
smallest possible minimum the army of unskilled workmen. Through skill
and training, labor must become pleasure. Steam and electricity must
take the place of human energy, lessen waste of raw material and elevate
the hand that guides the machine.

The present generation is sinfully extravagant. Forests, mines and soil
fertility are wasted with wanton prodigality. We speak of our coal
deposits and oil and gas wells as inexhaustible. We simply mean that it
will be impossible for this and probably for the next generation to
exhaust them. But coal mines are not inexhaustible. Oil and gas wells
are problematical as to the length of time they will yield their
products. To such an extent have the forests been destroyed that
substitutes for timber are already sought for building purposes and
manufactures. Timber that would be worth millions of dollars to our
grand children is burned in a day to provide a sheep pasture on some
western mountain. We seem determined to waste and destroy what we cannot
consume or turn into ready money.

European countries abound in sad memories of wasted soil fertility and
forest destruction. Slowly but surely they are rebuilding and
rehabilitating worn out tracts at tremendous expense. The ruin which
ignorance accomplished with alacrity, education is slowly and painfully
undoing. Americans should heed the lessons of history and profit by the
mistakes of other countries. The production of food, clothing and other
necessaries of life which is of vital importance to a nation, cannot,
with safety, be left to blind forces or to revered but ignorant
traditions. For it is a singular fact that science had quite as much to
do with ridding agriculture and the manufacture of commodities of
debilitating superstitions that not only retarded progress but were
positively injurious to both man and material, as it had to do with the
introduction of rational ideas. The rapid increase of the world's
population and the very general occupancy of arable lands throughout the
world, presupposes that the maximum of food production will soon be
reached. A liberal and general diffusion of scientific information among
agriculturists alone can augment the productive power of the soil and at
the same time conserve its fertility for the support of future
generations. This subject demands a real awakening of public sentiment
as to its importance. Provision must be made for thorough training that
will direct the labo