THE FARMER AND HIS CALLING. 23 



this subject. Labor is respectable when it is associated with a 

 good degree or with a high order of intelligence ; and it is con- 

 sidered menial whenever and wherever it is associated with 

 servility and. ignorance. 



Now, then, if yon desire to make your industrial character 

 respectable and respected in the eyes of men, you must not only 

 maintain your present position, but you must make continual 

 advances in the acquisition of knowledge. You must send 

 into the public schools, where your children are educated, true 

 principles, doctrines, and ideas of learning, with reference to 

 agriculture, and with reference to all things else. The labor- 

 ing population may be made intelligent by public schools, 

 public libraries, state agricultural associations, county associa- 

 tions, and lectures upon agriculture, mechanics, history and 

 general learning. 



Be not, my friends, afraid of knowledge in agriculture ; be 

 not afraid of book-farming ; be not afraid of science. Learn- 

 ing is not dangerous. Occasionally there may be a person who 

 believes that learning unfits us for manual labor, but generally 

 we have outgrown this delusion, and are prepared to accept the 

 truth that it is for the welfare of society that every man should 

 be educated, that he may do the work to which he is called in 

 the best possible manner. And you can only do this by laying 

 broad and deep your system of public instruction, and guiding, 

 guarding, and cherishing it under the pressure of hostility and 

 in the presence of temptation. A generation so educated as 

 to do fitly and well the work that is to be done, must inevitably 

 be a wealthy generation. And assuming the existence of habits 

 of industry and the possession of average virtue, every genera- 

 tion possesses wealth in proportion to its intelligence. Has it 

 ever happened, except in occasional cases, that an individual 

 or a nation escaped from poverty until he or it first escaped 

 from ignorance ? A striking illustration of this fact is seen in 

 the recent history of Ireland. Within the last ten years the 

 foundations have been laid, through the wise policy of England, 

 and the generous concurrence of the leaders of the Protestant 

 and Catholic churches, for the education of the people, by the 

 establishment of public schools. This movement, in connec- 

 tion with the distribution of landed estates, has in a degree 

 already disenthralled and redeeinsd Ireland ; and in twenty- 



