year 1897, a Bishop
Withington, of Nebraska, speaking of farmers' sons who were struggling
for an education, says of them:

"'The farmers' sons--a great many of them--who have absolutely no
ability to rise, get a taste of education and follow it up. They will
never amount to anything--that is, many of them--and they become
dissatisfied to follow in the walk of life that God intended they
should, and drift into cities. It is the over-education of those who are
not qualified to receive it that fills our cities, while the farms lie
idle.'

"This, Mr. Fenwick, is but a sample of many like expressions from the
lips of public men, showing the stigma and low estimate which is placed
on farmers as a class, by clerical, professional and commercial people.
When we consider that farming people form a large majority of the
citizens of our republic, a republic whose constitution guarantees equal
rights for all; whose chief corner stone from the beginning, has been
its admirable system of free education in its public schools; the
manifest endeavor of the Bishop and his class, to consign the tillers of
the soil to a caste of low order, and to argue that education is for the
few and not for the farmer, indicates something radically wrong in our
social system that augurs ill for the future of our republic. That the
dissatisfaction is widespread and serious, is manifest to all thinkers
and observers. To discover the cause and cure, and to speedily apply the
remedy for this growing discontent, becomes an imperative duty for all
patriotic people. In my experience, the following are some of the most
prolific causes:

"The isolation and loneliness of the small farm.

"The long hours of tedious, monotonous toil for both man and woman.

"The constantly increasing competition of large farms, armed with
capital and expensive machinery, which tends to reduce the price of farm
products.

"The want of proper society, healthful amusements, books, and many other
necessary educational facilities.

"The discouraging meagerness of the financial returns for a year of such
constant toil.

"These things all tend to destroy the farmer's love for, and pride in,
his occupation, until farm work becomes a repulsive drudgery, and he
flies to the city for a more congenial employment. Is it then, under the
circumstances, any wonder that the farmers' sons should become
dissatisfied with the occupation of their birth? That in company with
their sisters an