REARING AND FEEDING FARM STOCK. J 57 



with a variety of gifts. Were it not so, the world would not be 

 worth living in. No common man can attend to several different 

 pursuits to advantage, any more than he can ride two or three 

 horses without being in danger of coming to the ground. No 

 man can excel in any art or science unless he gives it his undi- 

 vided attention. I ask again, why has farm labor been degraded, 

 why, when we all know that literary and scientific men would 

 soon die out were it not for the farmer and mechanic ? Why then 

 have any ever been. so unwise as to demean the laboring classes ? 

 It arose chiefly from the meanness of the ambitious few, and partly 

 from the force of circumstances in early periods. It is plain to 

 see that ambitions', artful, designing pagan priests had much to 

 do in moulding society. Nearly all the learning of that period 

 centered in them. They were at once priests, astronomers and 

 physicians. The masses of ignorant people believed them to be 

 the vicegerents of God. It was then that in Asia and a part of 

 Africa caste arose, and it has proved one of the great curses of the 

 world. It still remains, but is steadily growing less. 



It has been comparatively but a short time since schools have 

 been free to everybody ; and in the days of our fathers the chances 

 of getting much of an education were open only to a few, nor was 

 it supposed at that time that any necessity existed for educating 

 a boy to become a farmer any farther than to teach him to read 

 and write and cypher through the four first rules of arithmetic. 

 Although the course of studies was short, it is patent that very 

 many only took a partial course at that; and it is no uncommon 

 thing nowadays to hear the remark that such a one has learning 

 enough for a farmer. Hence it is not so much labor of one kind, 

 or another, that shut them out from society, as the fact that they 

 are not educated, hence are not intelligent and interesting, and 

 are entirely uuprepared to mingle with intelligence and refine- 

 ment. Ignorance and rusticity, intelligence and refinement can- 

 not mingle together, they have no natural affinity for each other. 

 Now this state of things need not exist, and there has been an 

 improvement in the right direction growing mainly out of the 

 influence of the Board of Agriculture, agricultural societies and 

 agricultural newspapers. 



Our constitution forbids titles of nobility, yet we always had 

 and still have a species of aristocracy. This ought not to be. It 

 seems to have been the natural tendency among all people from 

 time immemorial to exalt the few at the expense of the many. 



