28 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



broke the Sabbath one day by spending Sunday noon talking 

 about a remarkable feat of a certain fellow, a large, husky, 

 powerful farmer, who husked and put into the wagon a remark- 

 able number of bushels of corn the day before. Now, today, 

 I am afraid that farm hands would rather tell how few bushels 

 of corn they have managed to husk and get into the wagon, 

 rather than how many. Now, is not that so, gentlemen? Is 

 not the spirit of pride in work, to a very large extent, gone out 

 of our people ? Is not that one trouble with the New England 

 farmer? I admit freely, and I am glad of it, that nobody on 

 the farm needs to work with his hands as hard as we had to do 

 a generation ago. We are using now the powers of the lower 

 animals, and more and more, also, the material forces of nature. 

 The electric battery, and the power of electricity, the power of 

 the winds and the streams, and the power that is in our wood 

 piles and our coal bins, to do the work of life, and less and less 

 are the big body and strong muscles of man necessary for the 

 accomplishment of daily tasks. But, gentlemen, farmers, men, 

 just so sure as there goes out from the hearts of men a respect 

 for the accomplishment of tasks in the best way that they can 

 be done, just so sure as men cease to take pride in doing their 

 work well, just so sure as we cease to admire successful achieve- 

 ment, just so certain as man comes to think that the opportunity 

 of his life will be found in avoiding work, rather than in doing 

 work, just so sure will the civilization of the country and the 

 State go down and not up. I have no faith whatever in the 

 man who leaves the farm because he feels he will find an easier 

 life somewhere else. I do not think he will. I hope he will 

 not. It seems to me that we must develop more and more that 

 ideal spirit in man which rejoices in accomplishing things for 

 their own sake. I have a deep respect, a high feeling, for the 

 chap that husked that tremendous lot of corn on that Saturday 

 so many years ago in Brooklyn, Conn. He is a better man 

 than anybody who dodges work and who leaves the farm 

 because he desires to look for some easier task. That is also 

 one of the great troubles with our schools, that so many go there 

 feeling that if they are taught a little bookkeeping, a little type- 

 writing, a little more mathematics perhaps than somebody else 

 knows, that somewhere and somehow they are going to escape 

 the serious responsibilities of life, and are going to be able to 

 make an easy living. It is a mistake. They are not going to. 



