t
necessarily glorious. To toil like slaves, raise fat steers, cultivate
broad acres, pile up treasures of bonds and lands and herds, and at
the same time bow and starve the god-like form, harden the hands,
dwarf the immortal mind and alienate the children from the homestead,
is a damning disgrace to any man, and should stamp him as worse than a
brute."

Thus the farmers have joined the great strike of labor against
drudgery, and it will never end until it is fully recognized that,
while every unproductive life is a dishonorable life, drudgery is no
less degrading than pure idleness. To be sure, the sages in all times
have taught that there was a time to sing and dance as well as a time
to labor, but it is not fifty years since it was generally accepted
by the masses that a person might spend every day of his adult life
in monotonous manual labor, and yet, other things being favorable,
be just as intelligent, just as polished in manner, and graceful
in bearing as if his occupation was varied and the more laborious
portions of it never continued long at a time. To-day this fallacy is
beginning to be generally recognized. Go into any farming district,
and you will find that the farmer's sons who are regularly engaged in
one kind of labor all day, as ploughing, planting, mowing, are
great, awkward, heavy-mannered youths, while his daughters are, in
comparison, easy in their movements and agreeable in their address;
and simply because, though their labor has been as unremitting, it has
been far less monotonous. As a general rule, they go from one thing to
another, and through a great variety of muscular exercises from hour
to hour.

It is no wonder, then, that the farmers' sons, to get rid of the
terrible monotony of farm-labor as now organized, find peddling
tin kettles an acceptable substitute, or turning somersets in a
third-class circus a fortunate escape. The reason why our country
youths are so impatient of farm-labor is not that they are less
virtuous than formerly, but that they are wiser; and the railroad has
opened a thousand fields for their ambitious daring undreamed of
as possibilities in the olden time. Not even the combination of
attractions afforded by the granges, with their libraries and
reading-rooms, their processions and picnics, the decoration of grange
halls in company with the ladies of the order, the working of degrees,
the music, social reunions, balls and concerts, can keep young men on
the fa