PROSPERITY AND POWER OF MASSACHUSETTS. 87 



out the Commonwealth, will accomplish all that is required of 

 it. And this I desire not for crops alone, nor for mere profit. 

 Our means of communication are such that the lands of this 

 Commonwealth are available throughout almost its entire length 

 and breadth ; and they should be occupied by those who are 

 employed in the daily toil of our large towns and cities. Every 

 man has a natural desire for a homestead ; and here in New 

 England the associations and influences which go with it are 

 as conductive to moral health as the care of the land is to the 

 physical well-being. While we are endeavoring in every way 

 to instruct our young men in agriculture, and to develop the 

 wealth of our community by devotion to the business of farm- 

 ing, may we not also secure increased happiness and comfort 

 for those employed in daily labor, by tempting them away from 

 narrow streets into cheap and attractive homes, — into that best 

 of all material possessions, a house and land. 



I allude to this form of occupying the land with the more 

 feeling, because I know that amidst all our changes of policies, 

 and industries, and enterprises, and wealth, amidst all the shift- 

 ing scenes which diversify the face of American society, and 

 from which no man and no man's children are excluded, there 

 is one element which remains fixed and unchangeable — and that 

 is a demand for independent, aspiring, educated labor. Nine- 

 tenths of our people, perhaps more, are toiling, on the land or 

 on the sea, in the workshop, in the professions, in all educa- 

 tional institutions, to furnish themselves and their families with 

 subsistence, to create the material wealth of the community, 

 and to elevate and refine and organize and save society. To 

 the productive and cultivating power of these classes, every- 

 thing stands secondary. To them, every avenue is open. From 

 this great multitude spring, in succeeding generations, the fore- 

 most men, who accomplish for us in every service, the great re- 

 sults. It is our laborers who become our inventors, anxious to 

 relieve the burdens and quicken the capacity of toil. It is they 

 who, step by step, advance from the simplest details and common- 

 est services up to the highest positions in all the great enterprises 

 which make up our busy life. They build, and organize, and rise 

 into the control of our railroads. They conduct our mills. They 

 guide our ships. They open the paths for the capital they create. 

 They fill our schools. They apply their ingenuity to the soil. 



