BRING OUT THE YOUNG MEN. 349 



interest in the prosperity of the society throughout the farming 

 community. They would be able to devise methods of varying 

 the premium list, or to suggest changes in the mode of award- 

 ing prizes. Their report might be expected to contain many 

 practical suggestions by which the usefulness of the society 

 would be greatly increased, and through which it could return 

 to the people of the Commonwealth some fair equivalent for 

 the bounty that has been bestowed upon it. 



I often hear the officers of societies complain that all the work 

 falls on one or two individuals ; that the people do not take hold 

 and do the work ; that it is difficult to get up any enthusiasm : as 

 if this were any explanation of the torpidity of the society. If 

 such a state of things exists, who is responsible for it ? Is it not 

 the fault of the management itself? Has there been a rightly 

 directed effort to " bring out " the young men, or have they 

 been left out in the cold ? If an orator is to be chosen, has he 

 not been called from abroad, in the shape of some lawyer, or 

 minister, or politician, instead of giving the native, and perhaps 

 too modest, talent of the society itself, an opportunity to make 

 its appearance ? If a display is to be made at the annual 

 dinner, is there sufficient dependence upon the members of the 

 society, or has the management looked abroad for higher- sound- 

 ing names ? 



One of the grandest missions which a society has it in its 

 power to accomplish is the education, the bringing out, so to 

 speak, of a class of young men, farmers' sons, and leading them 

 to feel that there is a work for them to do. Nothing builds up 

 a young man so rapidly as responsibility. The mere opportunity 

 is hardly enough ; modesty may compel him to shrink from seek- 

 ing it, but once thrust it upon him, and he grows up to it in a 

 manner which often astonishes himself. He discovers in his own 

 mind, resources of which he, perhaps, did not even know the 

 existence. Success teaches him self-respect, and confidence in 

 him gives him character. 



Now if this claes of the members of a society had been persist- 

 ently encouraged through a period of ten years, how could there 

 be any need of co-workers in the objects and purposes of the 

 institution ? How could there be any serious difficulty in find- 

 ing suitable men to act as chairmen of important committees, 

 — men both willing and capable of writing instructive and useful 



