Up to this time the United States Dispensatory and other works

on pharmacy, ascribed the following rather indefinite cause for
the acridity of the Indian turnip
Up to this time the United States Dispensatory and other works
on pharmacy, ascribed the following rather indefinite cause for
the acridity of the Indian turnip. It was said to be due to an
acrid, extremely volatile principle. This principle was
insoluble in water and alcohol, but soluble in ether. It was
dissipated both by heating and drying, and by this means the
acridity is destroyed. There was no opinion given as to the
real nature of this so-called principle.

The department store has brought together, as has never been done before

in history, a bewildering mass of delicate and beautiful fabrics,
jewelry and household decorations such as women covet, gathered
skilfully from all parts of the world, and in the midst of this bulk of
desirable possessions is placed an untrained girl with careful
instructions as to her conduct for making sales, but with no guidance in
regard to herself
The department store has brought together, as has never been done before
in history, a bewildering mass of delicate and beautiful fabrics,
jewelry and household decorations such as women covet, gathered
skilfully from all parts of the world, and in the midst of this bulk of
desirable possessions is placed an untrained girl with careful
instructions as to her conduct for making sales, but with no guidance in
regard to herself. Such a girl may be bitterly lonely, but she is
expected to smile affably all day long upon a throng of changing
customers. She may be without adequate clothing, although she stands in
an emporium where it is piled about her, literally as high as her head.
She may be faint for want of food but she may not sit down lest she
assume 'an attitude of inertia and indifference,' which is against the
rules. She may have a great desire for pretty things, but she must sell
to other people at least twenty-five times the amount of her own salary,
or she will not be retained. Because she is of the first generation of
girls which has stood alone in the midst of trade, she is clinging and
timid, and yet the only person, man or woman, in this commercial
atmosphere who speaks to her of the care and protection which she
craves, is seeking to betray her. Because she is young and feminine, her
mind secretly dwells upon a future lover, upon a home, adorned with the
most enticing of the household goods about her, upon a child dressed in
the filmy fabrics she tenderly touches, and yet the only man who
approaches her there acting upon the knowledge of this inner life of
hers, does it with the direct intention of playing upon it in order to
despoil her. Is it surprising that the average human nature of these
young girls cannot, in many instances, endure this strain? Of fifteen
thousand women employed in the down-town department stores of Chicago,
the majority are Americans. We all know that the American girl has grown
up in the belief that the world is hers from which to choose, that there
is ordinarily no limit to her ambition or to her definition of success.
She realizes that she is well mannered and well dressed and does not
appear unlike most of her customers. She sees only one aspect of her
countrywomen who come shopping, and she may well believe that the chief
concern of life is fashionable clothing. Her interest and ambition
almost inevitably become thoroughly worldly, and from the very fact that
she is employed down town, she obtains an exaggerated idea of the luxury
of the illicit life all about her, which is barely concealed.

1

1. Nature of attention: The nature of attention--Normal consciousness
always in a state of attention. 2. The effects of attention: Attention
makes its object clear and definite--Attention measures mental
efficiency. 3. How we attend: Attention a relating activity--The rhythms
of attention. 4. Points of failure in attention: Lack of
concentration--Mental wandering. 5. Types of attention: The three types
of attention--Interest and nonvoluntary attention--The will and
voluntary attention--Not really different kinds of attention--Making
different kinds of attention reenforce each other--The habit of
attention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

It is, of course, to be expected that an agricultural college would have

the means of making experiments; but each experiment could be made only
under a single set of circumstances, while the agency of local
societies, in connection with other parts of the plan that I have the
honor diffidently to present, would convert at once a county or a state
into an experimental farm for a given time and a given purpose
It is, of course, to be expected that an agricultural college would have
the means of making experiments; but each experiment could be made only
under a single set of circumstances, while the agency of local
societies, in connection with other parts of the plan that I have the
honor diffidently to present, would convert at once a county or a state
into an experimental farm for a given time and a given purpose. The
local club being always practical and never theoretical, dealing with
things always and never with signs, presenting only facts and never
conjectures, would, as a school for the young farmer, be quite equal,
and in some respects superior, to any that the government can establish.
But, it may be asked, will you call that a school which is merely an
assembly of adults without a teacher? I answer that technically it is
not a school, but that in reality such an association is a school in the
best use of the word. A school is, first, for the development of powers
and qualities whose germs already exist; then for the acquisition of
knowledge previously possessed by others; then for the prosecution of
original inquiries and investigations. The associations of which I speak
would possess all these powers, and contemplate all these results; but
that their powers might be more efficient, and for the advancement of
agriculture generally, it seems to me fit and proper for the state to
appoint scientific and practical men as agents of the Board of
Agriculture, and lecturers upon agricultural science and labor. If an
agricultural college were founded, a farm would be required, and at
least six professors would be necessary. Instead of a single farm, with
a hundred young men upon it, accept gratuitously, as you would no doubt
have opportunity, the use of many farms for experiments and repeated
trials of crops, and, at the same time, educate, not a hundred only, but
many thousand young men, nearly as well in theory and science, and much
better in practical labor, than they could be educated in a college. Six
professors, as agents, could accomplish a large amount of necessary
work; possibly, for the present, all that would be desired. Assume, for
this inquiry, that Massachusetts contains three hundred agricultural
towns; divide these towns into sections of fifty each; then assign one
section to each agent, with the understanding that his work for the
year is to be performed in that section, and then that he is to be
transferred to another. By a rotation of appointments and a succession
of labors, the varied attainments of the lecturers would be enjoyed by
the whole commonwealth. But, it may be asked, what, specifically stated,
shall the work of the agents be? Only suggestions can be offered in
answer to this inquiry. An agent might, in the summer season, visit his
fifty towns, and spend two days in each. While there, he could ascertain
the kinds of crops, modes of culture, nature of soils, practical
excellences, and practical defects, of the farmers; and he might also
provide for such experiments as he desired to have made. It would,
likewise, be in his power to give valuable advice, where it might be
needed, in regard to farming proper, and also to the erection and repair
of farm-buildings. I am satisfied that a competent agent would, in this
last particular alone, save to the people a sum equal to the entire cost
of his services. After this labor was accomplished, eight months would
remain for the preparation and delivery of lectures in the fifty towns
previously visited. These lectures might be delivered in each town, or
the agent might hold meetings of the nature of institutes in a number of
towns centrally situated. In either case, the lectures would be at once
scientific and practical; and their practical character would be
appreciated in the fact that a judicious agent would adapt his lectures
to the existing state of things in the given locality. This could not be
done by a college, however favorably situated, and however well
accomplished in the material of education. It is probable that the
lectures would be less scientific than those that would be given in a
college; but when their superior practical character is considered, and
when we consider also that they would be listened to by the great body
of farmers, old and young, while those of the college could be enjoyed
by a small number of youth only, we cannot doubt which would be the most
beneficial to the state, and to the cause of agriculture in the country.