to see younger and stronger men pass him in the race of
life. He looks forward to an old age of intellectual mediocrity. He will
be last where once he was the first. But the farmer goes, as it were,
into partnership with nature--"he lives with trees and flowers--he
breathes the sweet air of the fields." There is no constant and frightful
strain upon his mind. His nights are filled with sleep and rest. He
watches his flocks and herds as they feed upon the green and sunny
slopes. He hears the pleasant rain falling upon the waving corn, and the
trees he planted in youth rustle above him as he plants others for the
children yet to be.

Our country is filled with the idle and unemployed, and the great
question asking for an answer is: What shall be done with these men?
What shall these men do? To this there is but one answer: They must
cultivate the soil. Farming must be rendered more attractive. Those who
work the land must have an honest pride in their business. They must
educate their children to cultivate the soil. They must make farming
easier, so that their children will not hate it--so that they will not
hate it themselves. The boys must not be taught that tilling the ground
is a curse and almost a disgrace. They must not suppose that education
is thrown away upon them unless they become ministers, merchants,
lawyers, doctors, or statesmen. It must be understood that education
can be used to advantage on a farm. We must get rid of the idea that a
little learning unfits one for work. There is no real conflict between
Latin and labor. There are hundreds of graduates of Yale and Harvard
and other colleges, who are agents of sewing machines, solicitors for
insurance, clerks, copyists, in short, performing a hundred varieties of
menial service. They seem willing to do anything that is not regarded as
work--anything that can be done in a town, in the house, in an office,
but they avoid farming as they would a leprosy. Nearly every young man
educated in this way is simply ruined. Such an education ought to be
called ignorance. It is a thousand times better to have common sense
without education, than education without the sense. Boys and girls
should be educated to help themselves. They should be taught that it is
disgraceful to be idle, and dishonorable to be useless.

I say again, if you want more men and women on the farms, something must
be done to make farm life pleasant. One great difficulty is that the
farm is lonel