320 WISCONSIN AGRICULTURE. 



brave and well disciplined, as treasured wealth, piled up in the 

 coffers of a few, calling themselves a privileged class, will not 

 long sustain a nation. Intelligence^ Virtue^ and Industry^ are the 

 foundation of greatness, and if we would raise ourselves in the 

 scale of nations, we must first educate the masses of the people. 

 Bj education I do not mean merely learning to read and write 

 and cipher, but I mean, to give them an education that will dcr 

 velope, in the highest degree, every power of the physical sys- 

 tem, and every faculty of the mind, and will bring those powers 

 and faculties into harmonious action. Educate them to think, 

 and educate them to labor. Labor induces thought, and thought 

 well directed, induces a person to do something for himself or 

 for others. A proper classification of society would divide a 

 community into two classes. The first would include all those 

 that are engaged in the business of life — the farmer, the mechan- 

 ic, the manufacturer, the artist, the professional man, the mer- 

 chant, the banker, the man who with his shovel digs the canal 

 or grades the railroad, and all others who help to produce the 

 aggregate of the nation's wealth. The other class would be made 

 up of the idlers — men who follow no occupation but loafing, and 

 women who, instead of attending to their household duties, 

 saunter around the house or the neighborhood, spending their 



time in gossip or in peevish reflections on those with whom they 

 are surrounded. 



Let us go on with our improvements in agriculture, in the 



mechanic arts, and in education ; let us acknowledge the true 

 dignity of labor; let us follow our occupation industriously, and 

 if the blessings of a kind Providence that have hitherto been be- 

 stowed upon us, shall be continued, we shall become a happy 

 and a prosperous j)eople ; and Wisconsin — this commonwealth 

 of which we are justly proud — will become a flourishing State, 

 and an honor to this great Republic. 



JEFFERSON COUNTY. 



The Jefferson County Agricultural Society was organised on 

 the 10th of September, A. D. 1853. A Constitution was adopt- 



