SUCCESS ATTAINABLE AT HOME. 263 



sands, its mighty forests, capable of supplying half the ship-yards 

 of the world, with more than half of our State yet unoccupied, 

 with all our facilities for progress and improvement in useful know- 

 ledge, with the road to real and permanent success so plainly 

 marked out before us, I can but ask if it is wisdom to throw away 

 all this for the, at best, uncertain hope of accumulating more dol- 

 lars somewhere else ? 



We cannot all be merchants or professional men. The great 

 majority of us must continue to till the soil as our fathers have 

 done before us. We cannot all be rich, even as the world counts 

 riches, but we can all do our dut}', and we can do it as faithfully 

 in Maine as in any other State, find here as many opportunities for 

 doing or getting good, make ourselves as usful to our fellow men, 

 live as much respected and die as much regretted here as anywhere 

 else. If we do this we shall not only make our lives a success, 

 but shall make such a mark upon the community around us as 

 shall tell for good long after we have passed away. 



If this is real success, and if it may be as surely reached in 

 Maiue as elsewhere, let us inquire how. You will please remem- 

 ber that I am talking in a farmers' meeting, and mainly to persons 

 in the higher walks of life — I mean to farmers and mechanics, and 

 to those who earn their living by the labor of their hands. It is 

 well known that our circumstances, as a general thing, will not 

 allow us to employ private teachers for ourselves or our children, 

 or send them to boarding schools or classical institutions of learn- 

 ing. Our sources of improvement must be found mainly in our 

 midst. We see the best talent of our land and world devoted to 

 instruction in schools of theology, law, medicine, commerce, or the 

 arts, and years of toil, the most patient and incessant, devoted to 

 training and educating a man for successfully prosecuting his 

 chosen vocation. We see associations formed for mutual improve- 

 ment and protection, and all those guards thrown around the 

 members of those several associations necessary to the successful 

 prosecution of the same ; provided they bring to it those re- 

 sources of earnestness and integrity which are an essential element 

 of success in every vocation. 



Farmers and mechanics also have to some extent moved in the 

 same direction. We have agricultural societies, shows and fairs, 

 mechanics' fairs, boards of agriculture, the Agricultural College, 

 and of late the farmers' and mechanics' club. So much has been 

 said of each of these that you will hardly expect me to say 



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