The Stewardship of the Soil: Baccalaureate Address by John Henry Worst, President, North Dakota Agricultural College — John Shaqi
The Stewardship of the Soil: Baccalaureate Address by John Henry Worst, President, North Dakota Agricultural CollegeWorst, John H. (John Henry)
Science
The Stewardship of the Soil: Baccalaureate Address by John Henry Worst, President, North Dakota Agricultural College
Worst, John H. (John Henry)
Agriculture
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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