FAEMEES' IXSTITUTES. 275 



reduced to a routine, it is far more certainly true in a farmer's life, where all tlie 

 work is an exercise of judgment. No otlier worker lias such intricate and subtle 

 laws to deal with as the farmer has ; none has calls for clearer foresight and 

 insight ; none needs clearer perception of a thousand influences at work : and yet 

 too often he feels that a special training for the best use of his powers is a waste 

 of energies and capital. He even discourages the young man of education from 

 entering his calling, by making him believe that drudgery makes up the bulk of 

 its affairs. But if a larger training can still preserve along with it a taste for 

 farm pursuits (and we know by most demonstrative evidence that it can), there 

 is no reason why the ingenuity developed by education may not add its influence 

 to place agriculture the chief of arts, as it is the mother of arts. 



On my father's farm, in boyhood, puzzled to know how the huge gate-post 

 had found its place while I was at school, I asked father who helped him. The 

 answer was, "Mr. Contrivance." It was somewhat of a puzzle still to my 

 small brains, but from tliat day to this it has been a lesson to me, till I believe 

 that "Mr. Contrivance," well educated, can carry heavier loads than the world 

 has yet lifted. 



Such an education as shall help over the hard places in life and fit one to 

 enjoy his labor, will pay the largest interest. Look even now over the field of 

 earnest labor for improved agriculture, and not a few are educated men whose 

 culture helps them to success. If Hon. George Geddes reports crops one-half 

 larger than do his neighbors not under his advice, his mental culture does not 

 injure him, surely, — and there are scores like him. If now and then some 

 rattle-brained graduate turns to agriculture, thinking he can do a large business 

 because of his learning, without the constant and steady growth that comes 

 from attention to details, he fails, of course ; but a thousand and one have 

 failed like him, without the learning that made his failure notorious. But 

 there is no need of failure — almost no possibility of failure — to one who takes 

 the earnest work of life with the cool judgment tliat real education fosters. 



Here is the true cure for the desire to find something better than farming: 

 Let a boy see his way to usefulness and success, with enjoyment of his toil, and 

 the native instinct for digging will hold firm. I believe the time is coming, 

 when every farmer's son ayIio expects to own the paternal acres as deep as any- 

 body owns his land, Avill think the first investment toward such ownership to be 

 in farming his own brains. That so many young men have set out with this 

 provision is gratifying to all who take an interest in real progress. May the 

 way open to extend still wider the means and the desire for education in indus- 

 trial pursuits. 



You see, then, the "conclusion of the whole matter." " Wisdom is profit- 

 able to direct," and wherever a man is to be more than a mere tool in the 

 hands of another, his first and best investment is in getting wisdom, — the more of 

 it the better, Avlien it lies alongside his business. Many a man wishes he knew 

 more ; did ever one wish to know less ? Nor must we forget that while some 

 uneducated men are rich, thousands are paupers because of their neglect of cul- 

 ture, and still other thousands barely live, while the world thrives on their 



Ignorance. 



The second part of this question is easily answered. Through the benevo- 

 lence of good men and the wise foresight of our legislators, a liberal education 

 is within the reach of every one who has good hands and a strong heart to sup- 

 port them. A four years' course of study costs, in our State, from a thousand 

 to fifteen hundred dollars, much of which can be earned as needed by labor of 



