210 Bureau of Farmers' Institutes. 



and no uplift. As he gazed, his heart thrilled with pity and 

 terror over this pitiful example of humanity that had fallen down, 

 and he resolved then and there to speak a word for the humbled, 

 the burdened, the silenced of earth. You who are familiar with 

 the poem know with w^hat power he fulfilled his purpose. It is a 

 terrible arraignment of the men who are the " masters, lords and 

 rulers " of the world, who have failed to be fair to their brother 

 of the furrow. 



Millet, w^ho stamped his genius on the little canvas, was of peas- 

 ant parentage, having worked with his father in the fields of 

 France until he was 18. No one knew better than he the human 

 ruin which may be wrought by years of overwork and under pay. 



Markham, the poet, was a working man also — a " hoe man " 

 indeed — all through his boyhood and early manhood. He tells us 

 that " the smack of the soil and whirr of the forge " are in his 

 blood. 



His poem is not a protest against labor, but the degradation of 

 labor, the terrible oppression of man by man. The author be- 

 lieves, Tis every sensible person must, that labor is a humanizing 

 and regenerating power when wisely directed, and entered upon 

 with zeal and enthusiasm. But he knows, also, that work may be 

 so hard and the burdens so heavy as to deform the body and 

 starve the mind. The constant companionship of poverty and 

 fear saps the energies and destroys the power which makes us 

 men. 



Probably no poem in the last half century has so deeply stirred 

 the hearts of thoughtful people as the one under discussion. 

 Praise and criticism have been lavished upon it indiscriminately. 

 Some superficial thinkers among our agricultural brethren have 

 resented certain passages in the poem, and have rushed into print 

 to tell the public they were neither " brother to the ox " or " slave 

 of the wheel of labor!" This clearly proves that they have failed 

 to grasp the deep meaning, the great purpose of this modern ex- 

 ample of "holy writ." To me it is a clarion cry for justicel A 

 mighty plea for the socially submerged, for the unfortunate many 

 who are ground and bruised and broken on the wheel of life, that 

 the few may have more than they need of food and shelter and 

 life and light. 



