The mother listened, first with wonder; then with deepened interest, which changed to admiration for the language and for her son, who seemed to be filled with the spirit which had led Lincoln to see the problems and the possibilities of the farm life in a light that was wholly new. "Surely those are noble thoughts," she said, "from a noble and wise man. I shall only hope that you will find some opportunity to make the best possible of your life. We have such a small farm, and the land hereabout is all so high in price that to enlarge the farm seems almost hopeless. In part because of this difficulty it had seemed to me that greater opportunities might be open for you in other lines. Don't you feel that you will be greatly handicapped in the beginning?" "Perhaps," said Percy, "in some ways; but not in other ways. We hear on every hand that this is an age of specialists, that the most successful man cannot take time to prepare himself well for many different lines of work; that he must make the best possible preparation in some one line for which he may have special talent or special interest; and then endeavor to go farther in that line than any one has gone before. When I first wrote to the State University I asked how long a time would likely be required for me to complete all the subjects that are taught there, and the registrar replied that, if I could carry heavy work every year, I might hope to take all the courses now offered in about seventy years. In considering this point of preparation for future work, it has seemed to me that if I leave the farm life and devote myself to law or to engineering, I must in large measure sacrifice about ten years of valuable experience in practical agriculture. I have learned enough about farming so that I can manage almost as well as the neighbors; and without this knowledge, gathered, as you say, in the school of experience, I can see that serious mistakes would often be made. "You know that Doctor Miller bought the Bronson farm two years ago. Well, he has been giving some directions himself concerning its management. He has had no experience in farming, and last year, after he had the new barn built, he directed his men to put the sheaf oats in the barn so they would be safe from the weather. He did not understand that oats must stand in the shock for two or three weeks to become thoroughly "cured" before they can safely be even stacked out of doors; and the result was that his entire oat crop rotted in the barn. "People who have lived always in the city sometimes express the most amusing opinions of farm conditions so well understood even by a ten-year-old country boy. I recently overheard two traveling men remarking about the differences which they could plainly observe between the corn crops in different fields as they rode past in the train.