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neglected soils or tress can no more produce profitable crops of fruit, than 

 starved or neglected corn-fields will good crops of corn; while a thorough, enter- 

 prising farmer will strive to attend to all aright. 0, the blessings of knowledge 

 and industry, of enterprise and economy combined ! Who would not enjoy them, 

 and avoid the multiplied curses of ignorance and indolence, though ever so gen- 

 teel. And where are our schools that teach these doctrines to our farmers and 

 mechanics — where science and practice are combined to prepare them for their 

 arduous tasks in life; and where I might ask, in fact, is the High School or 

 College that does not virtually inculcate other and contrary doctrines — that the 

 practice of manual labor and thorough economy is undignified and degrading. 

 And while this caste distribution of all the advantages and perquisites of educa- 

 tion prevails ; while that knowledge, which is power, is denied to the many in 

 their chosen, all-important avocations, what hope can there be for them ? Alas, 

 for poor human nature doomed, as it apparantly is, ever to run the same weary 

 round — the many, it would seem, must be ignorant and poor, hewers of wood 

 and drawers of water for the few rich and noble; and that, despite of changes 

 and revolutions, of democratic declarations and constitutions. But here, in their 

 sovereignty, let not the many complain, though they behold the sceptre depart- 

 ing from them, if they will have it so — if, at every step, they themselves uphold 

 this state of things; this social degradation of labor, this unholy divorce of 

 manual labor from science and popularity ; if daily, continually, they applaud 

 and endorse, apparently for its own sake, idle, empty-headed, white-handed 

 gentility — let them not complain if demagogues bear sway — if farmers and 

 mechanics are not only practically ineligible to ofiice, but positively incapable of 

 properly making or administering laws. " As we sow, so must we also reap." 

 That bondage which is self-imposed excites no sympathy, though it be the most 

 bitter, as it is. the most hopeless of all. 



But the remedy is easy, the means simple and obvious. We must educate 

 ourselves^ as farmers and mechanics, to the mastery of all that is good, that is 

 useful, in befitting for life — " high life" as well as " low life." Would we set up 

 and bow down to any subordinate shrine, let it be that of labor. Glorious, world- 

 subduing, man-developing Labor ! Not of the hands alone, but of the hands, 

 the heart, the head, equally and alike. And then we have only to be consistent, and 

 press forward — to mark such as are our real friends and sustain them — in church 

 and state, public and private; in matters social, pecuniary, or political — by all 

 proper means, in word and deed, but most of all at the ballot-box — and the victory 

 is accomplished : that victory wherein all are equally interested — the victory of 

 Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, 



Shall we not then have our National Bureau of Agriculture, State Industiial 

 Universities, where the whole theory and practice of Agriculture and the Mechanic 



