504 FAEMERS' INSTITUTES. 



We are seeing the last days of a people whose work will never be duplicated 

 in Anrierica's history, for the future settler of the West need never know the 

 privations of the early Michigan farmers. The miner will hardly have staked 

 his claim on the side of a Colorado mountain ere telephonic communication 

 and daily mail are extended to him. And the Dakota settler! Little he knows 

 of clearing new land or plowing among stumps. He comes from the crowded 

 countries over the water, looking for room to rest his travel worn feet, and 

 our government gives it to him — eighty acres of cleared land for each foot. 

 It hardly requires a lifetime for him to get that farm into working order, and 

 as to privations, the very latest improvements in farming machinery are right 

 at his very door almost as soon as he is. 



Now this is not to assert that a Dakota settler's life is all roses, but in point 

 of clearing new land, it is in comparison with that of a Michigan settler, at 

 least, the one to be preferred. 



In regard to discharging this debt, this moral obligation under which we 

 are, I want to mention only two methods : one is to take more care in recording 

 our pioneer histories; the other, to evince more interest; in*those with whom 

 we are personally connected. As to the first, we have a grand opportunity of 

 learning history from the lips of those who made it, and how shall future 

 historians justly compute the value of their work unless we thus assist them? 

 The deeds of warriors are not forgotten because they are duly chronicled and 

 preserved in the records of war. Soldiers of war march to the front, fired 

 with ambition, urged on by enthusiasm, to gain death or glory, or perhaps 

 both; but the soldiers of emigration were under no such inspiring influences. 

 They waged a war with poverty and wild beasts, fever and ague, and homesick- 

 ness. The stakes were a home and a heritage, and though they did not 

 always win, they fought battles as worthy of remembrance as any ever fought 

 under flag. 



Not longer than two years ago, one of our county newspapers published a 

 request for short sketches of pioneers' lives, and of interesting events in the 

 early history of our county. I do not recollect that any response was ever 

 made to the call. Now, why should not such sketches be made by those who 

 may be interested in the work? They may not be literary efforts worthy of 

 publication, but facts will thereby be preserved which may some day be of 

 value. The tired old hands which have grown more used to the plow than 

 the pen will never accomplish this task for themselves, and why should not 

 some younger hand perform the office for them. We ought to take more 

 interest in this work. We find time for everything else. We take plenty of 

 interest in the men who sit in Washington, making our country's laws (and 

 quarreling with Great Britain about where we shall dig bait), but we have 

 no time to remember the men who worked in Michigan forests, making our 

 country's wealth. It remains with us to decide whether they shall be remem- 

 bered or forgotten. Shall we bring reproach upon our generation by rele- 

 gating these old heroes, our benefactors, to oblivion? "If memory o'er their 

 tomb no trophies raise," later generations will rightly impute the fault to us. 

 We are submitting these battle-worn veterans to a last cruel test, and they 

 are bearing it with what has been so aptly called "the heroism of never 

 being heard of." 



We affect to despise the "boast of heraldry," but 'twere well if our demo- 

 cratic principles do not carry us to the extent of completely ignoring the 

 achievements of our ancestors. There is nothing snobbish in remembering 

 with pride any act of an ancestor which may reflect credit upon his name. 



