82 VERMONT AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



tion, all the outgrowth of a better ordered citizenship, the 

 foundation of all great nationality. 



It is not all of town citizenship to be interested only in 

 national affairs or to attempt great political reforms, (many 

 farmers seem to think that all greatness grows out of poli- 

 tics), but let us first make our homes what they should be and 

 we shall then be better able to keep our town politics pure 

 and town affairs economically administered ; these kept above 

 reproach, it will be easy to have the affairs of state and na- 

 tion correspond. If the fountain head is pure and the enter- 

 ing side streams governed by the same laws of sanitation, 

 political jobbery and spoliation will cease and the great rural 

 element will be the pioneer and conservator of right and the 

 farm will have won its greatest victory. 



Treating our small towns as farming communities and 

 recognizing, as I have, that the interests of the township are 

 held in common, I may be allowed to point out what I think 

 would greatly help us on in citizenship and at the same time ■ 

 promote our common elevation and be the power that would 

 beget many improvements, for it is not improved dooryards 

 alone that we need, but also a general, all around shake-up in 

 our methods and practices and, pardon me. there could be an 

 improvement in our moral tone that would do us no injury. 



Our rural neighborhoods could be greatly improved by 

 treating our youthful population as citizens, impressing it up- 

 on them so that they might realize their responsibility and 

 feel that they have moral and other obligations to carry and 

 maintain as well as older people. This lesson of obligation 

 should begin with the boys and girls in their teens, that they 

 have individual duties to perform in the upholding of law. 

 order, sobriety, decency and general character building ; that 

 the practices that go along with decorum, respect for morality 

 and the common usages of society, look as well when prac- 

 ticed by boys and men, by girls and young women, as when 

 exercised by their elders. The usages of rural citizenship 

 should be respected to the extent that young men should not 

 be excused for sowing wild oats in public view and should 

 forever be debarred the threshing of that crop on the moral 

 commons. I do not believe in prohibiting youthful pastimes 

 and amusements, but the world affords that which amuses 

 and gives ample recreation, without debasement or actual 

 blows at morality, and the country should be the great exhibi- 

 tion ground of this school of better citizenship. This good 

 citizenship should be taught in our homes and in our schools; 

 all good citizenship is founded on the home and the more per- 

 fect the conditions of that home the more sure will the 

 " swarming " from the home hive give to the state desirable 



