And since I have made this personal reference, may I violate the canons of good taste and make still another?  I was face to face with this problem of getting a living a good many years ago, when the opportunity came to me to take a college course.  I could see nothing ahead after that except another struggle with this same vital issue.  So I decided to take a college course which would, in all probability, help me to solve the problem.  Scientific agriculture was not developed in those days as it has been since that time, but a start had been made, and the various agricultural colleges were offering what seemed to be very practical courses.  I had had some early experience on the farm, and I decided to become a scientific farmer.  I took the course of four years and secured my degree.  The course was as useful from the standpoint of practical agriculture as any that could have been devised at the time.  But when I graduated, what did I find?  The same old problem of getting a living still confronted me as I had expected that it would; and alas!  I had got my education in a profession that demanded capital.  I was a landless farmer.  Times were hard and work of all kinds was very scarce.  The farmers of those days were inclined to scoff at scientific agriculture.  I could have worked for my board and a little more, and I should have done so had I been able to find a job.  But while I was looking for the place, a chance came to teach school, and I took the opportunity as a means of keeping the wolf from the door.  I have been engaged in the work of teaching ever since.  When I was able to buy land, I did so, and I have to-day a farm of which I am very proud.  It does not pay large dividends, but I keep it up for the fun I get out of it,—­and I like to think, also, that if I should lose my job as a teacher, I could go back to the farm and show the natives how to make money.  This is doubtless an illusion, but it is a source of solid comfort just the same.

Now the point of this experience is simply this:  I secured an education that seemed to me to promise the acme of utility.  In one way, it has fulfilled that promise far beyond my wildest expectations, but that way was very different from the one that I had anticipated.  The technical knowledge that I gained during those four strenuous years, I apply now only as a means of recreation.  So far as enabling me directly to get a living, this technical knowledge does not pay one per cent on the investment of time and money.  And yet I count the training that I got from its mastery as, perhaps, the most useful product of my education.