776 



have produced tlie greatest and best of men. Climate and soil have 

 scarcely more to do in the growth of crops than in the development 

 of a genuine manhood. Mental and moral worth catch their inspiration 

 from whatever is beautiful or sublime in the material world. The 

 natural products of a cheerless climate and sterile soil are barbarity 

 and ignorance. Men will degenerate wherever nature withholds her 

 gifts. The glaciers of the north and the African desert will forever 

 produce the Esquimaux and wild Arab. But where sunny skies 

 smile upon fruitful fields and fertilizing streams — where cultivated 

 farms and happy homes forever gi-eet and gladden the vision, there 

 humanity attains its truest growth, and the noblest prcKluct is enlightened 

 mind. 



Thus the influences that lend to individual character its shade and 

 shape, are widely various and ever active — men are wont to give to the 

 term Education a significance which is far too stinted and narrow. 

 Educational processes are not confined to the nursery or the school 

 room or to College halls. They begin in infancy, and end only with 

 life. The social and moral and physical worlds are constantly furnish- 

 ing the means by which mind is unfolded and formed. Whatever 

 arouses passion, or stimulates desire, or awakens an emotion, or suggests 

 a thought, performs its part as one of those forces which are inevitably 

 educating the man. Everything upon which the intellect can act, re- 

 acts and leaves its indelible impress. There is not an object that ap- 

 peals to the senses — that paints its image on the retina of the eye, or 

 wakes into music the tympana of the ear, that does not lend its item of 

 aid in giving to each character its peculiar stamp. It is of vital mo- 

 ment then, in choosing a vocation, to inquire not only with what profits 

 it fills the pocket, but also with what furniture it stores the mind. So 

 far as regards its regular and sure returns, its steady responses to the 

 calls of labor, agriculture is inferior to no other pursuit; but when esti- 

 mated from its reflexive efi'ects upon the qualities of the man, it is far su- 

 perior to all. There is not another calling which so elevates and expands 

 the energies of the soul as the tilling of the soil. The mechanic, day 

 after day, plias the same tools, prone and pent within lu's narrow work- 

 shop, until his mind catches the hue of its dingy walls. The teacher 

 breathes the vitiated air of the school room, and encounter its petty 



