314 WISCONSIN AGEICULTUEE. 



— who am but a "farmer's boy" and comparatively uneducated 

 — to address you on tbis occasion. But we shall trust to your 

 generosity to pardon his fault and my presumption. 



We are not assembled to celebrate the conquests of an army 

 that has wasted blood and treasure to gratify the caprice or am- 

 bition of an Emperor; neither are we met to congratulate his 

 Kingly Majesty on the extension of his dominions, but we are 

 here to encourage the cultivation of the arts of peace, and to cele- 

 brate the triumphant march of intelligent industry. And what 

 is more worthy of a tribute of respect than labor ? What more 

 deserving an annual festival like the present ? By labor we 

 procure for ourselves the necessaries and the comforts of life. 

 By it we develop our physical and mental powers, which our 

 Creator has given us for no other purpose than that we should 

 icse them, and thereby secure our own happiness. Labor has 

 brought this world of ours to the state in which we now find it 

 — it has subdued and cultivated the soil; it has hewn down the 

 forests ; it has built up cities ; it has navigated the oceans, the 

 lakes, and the rivers of the earth; it has constructed those nu- 

 merous chains of railroads that stretch across countries and con- 

 tinents, and has put upon their tracks the iron horse, which, pro- 

 pelled by fire and steam, goes forth to labor at the will of its 

 master. It has done all this and much more ; and guided by ed- 

 ucated minds and enlightened understandings, it will be the 

 great instrument to bring about the universal civilization of the 

 human race. The pyramids and obelisks of Egypt, and the 

 temples and terraces of Asiatic cities, whose glory is almost wip- 

 ed out by the hand of time, bear the traces of that same agent, 

 and prove to us that whatever of greatness has been possessed 

 by any people, in any age, has been procured by labor. Say 

 not then that labor is degrading — that the man or woman who 

 earn their daily bread by following some honest occupation, is 

 less honorable than they who, having a sufficiency of this world's 

 goods, that has been obtained by the labor of others, waste their 

 lives in luxury and idleness. Away with these false notions 

 that have crept into society, that refinement consists in a fine 

 white hand, unsullied by toil, and a pale face on which the sun 



