The Stewardship of the Soil / Baccalaureate Address by John Henry Worst, President, North Dakota Agricultural College

by John H. Worst

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.