MAINE STATE SOCIETY. £3 



acknowledge ; not because I see no respectability in the calling of 

 the tin-pedlar, or in that of the cord-wainer. I see, as you do, that 

 these employmen4s are as respectable as other modes of labor. What 

 to me is reprehensible in a case like the one before us, is, that a 

 noble, a grand occupation, is forsaken — one that may be deemed of 

 great compass, and of pre-eminent advantages, and as calling into 

 exercise the highest and purest faculties of the mind, as well as the 

 energies of the body — for another occupation of less scope and utility, 

 and not more conducive to the higher ends of life. 



The work of the farm should be engaged in with alacrity and 

 cheerfulness ; and tiiB boys and girls should be so instructed and 

 trained in it, that it will be their pleasure and delight. In order 

 to keep them at home, and to make their home, and their toil, and 

 their life, in all ways agreeable to them, there should be not only 

 care taken with reference to the architecture, and the disposition, 

 and the decorations of the house, and the other buildings, but there 

 should be, also, a persistent endeavor to dignify, ennoble and sweeten 

 the labor of the farm ; there should be not only the effort to estab- 

 lish the life of intelligence, freedom, usefulness, refinement, love, 

 affection, peace, and joy, within the house, but, also, the exertion 

 to find and bring to view the greatness, profit and honor, of the 

 roughest and hardest employment out of doors. Thus may the rising 

 generation be prevented from seeking new spheres of labor, — from 

 going to other avocations, or from emigrating to the distant Vv'est. 



Alas ! what harm comes to your sons and daughters, what harm 

 to yourselves, what harm to our great commonwealth, from the idea, 

 so widely prevalent, that the life of your farms in Maine, is too hard, 

 too laborious, and that wealth and happiness can be more quickly 

 and easily attained in new vocations, or on the fertile lands of the 

 Wesiern States. I know how strong the tide is I am attempting to 

 stem in this direction, but I must beat up against it. I must argue 

 that the labor you are called to perform on your farms, is w'hat you 

 owe to them, for what they yield to you ; that this labor is promo- 

 tive of your health and strength, and of your moral \yell-being ; and 

 that nothing of good is gained, beyond what might be acquired in 

 the East, by those who have broken away, in a stampede, from 

 their native homes, and have become scattered and lost to us, upon 

 the prairies of the West. 



