OXFORD SOCIETY. 101 



last twenty-fivG years in agriculture itself, and lie is a sorry 

 farmer, ihclccd, who lags a great way behind. Give, then, I 

 repeat, your sons and your daughters a good education. Do 

 not cheat them by holding out the idea, that, if they know as 

 much as their fathers and mothers, it is suflQcieut ; but rather 

 let them feel that they are a generation with privileges far 

 greater than their fathers enjoyed. Let them seize on the 

 improvements of the day, and be imbued with the spirit of 

 progress, and you may have no fears in leaving them behind 

 you to enjoy whatever you may bequeath to them. 



A Hint to Young Men. But, Mr. President, there is a por- 

 tion of this audience to which I wish to address a few words. 

 It is the farmer's sons. Probably not one of the young men 

 reared in this county, intends to be a farmer. The shoemaker's 

 shop, the factory, the railroad, the counting-room, offer to young 

 men greater inducements than the best farms in the land. Now 

 far be it from me to wish that all young men should be farmers. 

 But in making a choice between a farm and any mechanical em- 

 ployment, young men are too often dazzled by a little money 

 that can be earned after a few weeks of service in some other 

 employment. 



Let us see the result. A mechanic learns a trade, settles 

 down in life, secures a house lot, builds a house and a little 

 stable, keeps a cow and a pig, and lives, to use a very common 

 expression, from hand to mouth. He works early and late, is 

 constantly the servant of the public, or of an employer, and 

 has a reputation constantly at stake. He is honest, respected, 

 and useful in society. He is now forty-five years of age. 



How is it with the prospects of the young farmer. He 

 secures a few hundred dollars by his industry, purchases a farm, 

 and is enabled to have his own garden, orchard, pasture, field, 

 and wood-lot. He lays his plans for life. At the age of forty- 

 five he has a farm free from debt, with an amount of property 

 worth double and treble that of his neighbor, the mechanic. 

 A good farm will pay for itself at almost any price. Instead 

 of being compelled to wait upon customers late at night, he 

 enjoys the company of his family, reads his weekly papers, and 

 retires undisturbed by the vexations that beset the mechanic, 



