FarmHouse Fraternity's motto is Builder of Men and we believe in a 4 step builder process: Intellectually, Spiritually, Socially & Morally, and Physcially.

The Farm House—It’s Biggest Asset

By D. Howard Doane
Missouri Farm House Annual 1923

Recently I heard three men discussing a certain business transaction, when one in effect remarked, referring to the value of the business: “What are the tangible assets of this concern, and what are their cash value?  I am not willing to pay my hard earned money for so-called good will, blue sky, and what certain of the customers may do in the future.  All that is of value to me is the assets you can deliver and I can take with me.”  The man who was selling, and who had spent years in building the business, and who, through ups and downs, and personal sacrifices, had successfully guided it, replied: “Well, I guess you and I can’t deal.  The part of this business that is of most value to me is the part you cannot carry away.  It is the good will of my friends, the intangible assets, if you please.  The ‘spirit’ I have built will not burn, decay or blow away, but this office furniture, building and all material things may vanish by morning, but with my friends behind me, I will still have what I consider my biggest asset left—the spirit of the business.”

One of the first impressions of the freshmen centers around that intangible something the upperclassmen refer to as “spirit.”  The last and most abiding thought of the departing graduate is the “spirit” of his Alma Mater.  Out in the cold business world, hard headed business men discussing the biggest asset of their business, call it “spirit.”  It was the “spirit” of those seven men back in 1905 that laid the foundation for the Farm House of today.  In the spring of 1905, they pledged each other that they would return in the fall, start the Farm House and carry their part of the load—and they did.  It was a hard task.  The spirit of honor, the sacredness of a pledge, and determination to “carry on” that which was begun, carried us over those first hard years.

We organized the FarmHouse so that those of us who had found true companionship in each other might be drawn closer and be with each other more.  Funds were scarce but we felt that we could conduct a house of our own and save the landladies’ profit.  By each doing his part we did.  Long will we remember the night we gathered in Bob and Kruse’s room, (incidentally the smallest one in the house, but we always gathered there, and as I look back and wonder why, I think it must have been that unconsciously we were thus thrown in closest contact, and this closeness of relationship played its part in our beginning) to hear the Treasurer’s and Commissary’s last report.  The big question was, will we have to dig up to pay up, or will there be a surplus?  There was a surplus.  If I remember correctly, it was less than a dollar each, but never did a dollar look bigger.  It meant we could continue; it meant the Farm House would live: It meant that “the stunt that that bunch of freshman started” (the quotes are credited to the upper classmen who laughed at our beginning) would justify its founders.

The end of the first year by no means marked the end of the struggle, although on that memorable night, when we declared our first dividend, we most certainly thought we had “crossed the Alps.”  It was the enthusiasm of youth, the determination to hit back a little harder than we were hit, that kept us going.  It took the full four years of the founders to really put the Farm House on its feet.  Not even then was the task completed, but the question of life or death was definitely settled, in favor of life.

Those were wondrous happy years from the spring of 1905 to June, 1908.  All the original seven stuck through to the end and each carried home that precious sheep skin.  There was Bob, Kruse, Earl, Pearly, Si, Howdy and Melvin.  (Can you pick us out?  If you apply the present handles some of us have acquired, you will have to choose from an assortment that runs from farmer to dean.)  Now we are widely scattered.  Most of us are connected with some agricultural college.  All are active in our chosen work; but there is still that “spirit.”  We call it “Farm House spirit” for it stands for the same thing now that it did in the beginning.  I imagine that if a disinterested person should meet one of us his judgment would be “just an ordinary individual.”  Certainly he would see little on the outside that would identify us with our organization—unless perchance he saw a key or pin.  We feel sure there is no identification traceable to the fact that we lived in any particular house on one certain street.  The first house may be in ashes, for all I know, but we do feel there is still a common bond, a something that ties our heart string, something that has gone on, and on, and on, first at Missouri, then Nebraska, Illinois and now to many other states.  What is this enduring thing?  From what does it spring and what is it that gives it permanency, not alone for existence, but productive growth as well?  Each question brings us back to the same answer—spirit.  Yes, it is that same spirit that was born back in 1905 that lives and grows and is passed from man to man and group to group.  Maybe someone can define it.  I can’t.  In the beginning, it stood for a few pretty definite things and these things can be named.

Absolute honesty is the first I will mention, and if the Farm House does nothing more for us than plant this principle, and so firmly stamp it into your being that it becomes a part of us, then indeed, it will have served its purpose.

The Golden Rule marks a second corner stone.  We never called it that, but the will to help the other fellow is the same thing.  That is what brought us together and as I go back to the Farm House of today I see this same thought in unmistakable evidence.

Proficiency in our chosen work, Agriculture, and its elevation in the University, and the world in general, marks a third principle.  Then as now we call it scholarship, boosting and a part in student affairs.  It demands that we as bearers of this standard must so conduct our part in the affairs of Agriculture that those who see must look up, not down.

And fourth, and most important, comes not alone the last corner stone, but also the key-stone—The Christian spirit.  No man lives a full and complete life that is not grounded on the teachings of our Master.  That lowly Nazarene taught all that makes for permanency and worthfulness in a man’s life.  Unless we incorporate those principles not alone into the thoughts of the Seventh day, but into the acts of the six days, can we really call ourselves true bearers of the true spirit of the Farm House.

Today hundreds of men have caught the true Farm House spirit and are now passing it on, and on, and on.  It is the “spirit” that is the thing eternal, the biggest asset of the Farm House.