198 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



monkish idea that the way to make a saint of a sinner is to remove 

 him from temptation and shut him up in a monastery, where the 

 allurements and sins of the world cannot reach liim. 



Great men are not made in that way. The formation of charac- 

 ter is a positive, not a negative process; it is what the country 

 child does, the industry he learns and the strength he acquires 

 and develops that makes him; it is not what he avoids and shuns, 

 but what he meets and overcomes, that gives him his strength for 

 the battle of life. He conquers in great' things in later life, 

 because he had the practice on lesser things in his childhood and 

 youth. 



But I must hasten on. I have said that a great change is going 

 on, and that hereafter a relatively smaller and smaller proportion 

 of our youth will have any experience on farms. All over Chris- 

 tendom this is going on; the city and town populations are 

 increasing, railroads, steam, modern methods of travel, trade and 

 manufacture, and modern sanitary administration in cities, make 

 possible what before was impossible. Here in Connecticut, at the 

 last census, only 7.2 per cent, of the population belongs to the 

 class of "persons engaged in agriculture," and in Massachusetts 

 only 3.6 per cent. Within the memory of persons still alive agri- 

 culture was in both of these States the leading industry. But this 

 same change is going on in other countries. Even in old England 

 in 1 85 1 the ''agricultural class " constituted 11.2 per cent, of the total 

 population; in 1861, 9.6 per cent.; in 1871, 6.9 per cent.; in 1881, 

 but 4.9 per cent. Similar facts have been reported of France and 

 Germany ; and our recent census shows how rapidly the change is 

 going on with us. 



In New England a. change of sentiment towards agriculture is 

 going on along with this change in relative numbers engaged, 

 and with a larger class agriculture is not held to be quite so 

 respectable as some other vocations. Several causes have con- 

 duced to this. One is, that in a part of New England, notably in 

 Massachusetts, many have always held this, as a part of the tradi- 

 tions of the old world. Travelers have noticed more than once 

 the difference of sentiment in this matter in. Massachusetts, and in 

 the States west of the Hudson River. 



Another reason is, that agriculture is not the leading business 

 that it is farther west. Another, and perhaps more powerful than 

 either, is the large recent foreign immigration of people who bring 



