MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 411)' 



Then why is it that there are so many idlers in every community when suc- 

 cess in this calling is open to all who have industry and good habits, and from 

 what classes do they spring? As a rule they are the products of cities and vil- 

 lages. They have been brought up with nothing to do but go to school, govern 

 their parents, parade the streets, patronize the groceries, and talk politics. 

 They are generally rotten in crime before they are ripe in years, and the good 

 State out of kindness furnishes them a chance to improve their morals at Jack- 

 son. This only demonstrates a fact as old as humanity itself, that idleness is 

 the devil's work -shop, and. if parents in city or country, out of a foolish tender- 

 ness, will allow their sons and. daughters to grow up without thorough habits of 

 labor and. industry they not only do them a great injury and. wrong, but they 

 need, not be disappointed if their gray hairs are brought with sorrow to the 

 graves. 



May I ask, is this employment shunned because the labor of it is supposed to 

 be harder than that of any other pursuit.^ If so, no greater error can be made. 

 Close application and severe labor is the only road to success in any department 

 of business. I know tliat prejudice against this employment is sometimes 

 engendered by the habits of careless farmers. If you pass a farmer's house 

 and see cat holes in the door, rags and old hats in the window, pig-pens in 

 front of the door-yard, heaps of filthy rubbish filled wdth fleas and vermin 

 storming the family mansion on all sides, with a slop-hole at the kitchen door 

 emitting an odor not unlike that of the all-healing waters of Mt. Clemens, I 

 confess it takes all the poetry out of farming, and I do not blame the good 

 house-wife in that case if she delivers caudle lectures every night ; but even 

 then such a home is preferable to a back room in a grocery, as much so as a 

 physical pestilence is preferable to a moral one. But this filthy condition 

 does not result from the farmer's occupation, but is the result of sheer indo- 

 lence and carelessness, as nothing is easier without large expense than to keep^ 

 the farmer's premises clean and attractive. 



In my judgment, one of the worst signs of the times is the fact that our agri- 

 cultural productions are falling off, and the apparently growing disposition of 

 our young men and women to shun farm labor. Formerly this was not so, and 

 young people whose parents were in comfortable circumstances would more 

 readily take employment with the farmer than witli any other class. I very 

 much fear this sentiment among the young is due in a large degree to the false 

 impressions of parents themselves, and to their allowing a foolish pride to con- 

 trol their better judgments. 



If children were honestly taught that all legitimate labor is honorable and 

 that indolence and idleness are a reproach and a disgrace to any family, do you. 

 think you would see our young men shunning the manual pursuits of the hus- 

 bandman to become a clerk in some low doggery or other vile pursuit ; or, if 

 not that, would he prefer to rush into the city to be the family servant of some 

 one, to drive a hack, or peddle essences, or be a waiter at a hotel? Would he- 

 not rather be a laborer than a loafer, starting out with the theory that the 

 world owes him a living, and that he is going to get it as a drone or by trickery 

 and fraud? If taught that labor was indispensable to good character, would 

 the daughter, whose mother is worn out by toil, lace herself iip andsit in the 

 parlor whilst the mother is performing the household duties? Would she trav- 

 erse the country over as a book peddler, liable to have her maiden modesty 

 insulted, rather than to find employment in a virtuous, intelligent farmer's^ 

 family? Do you not know that this disposition to avoid labor supplies with. 



