106 MISSOURI STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Time would fail me to speak of all the living and the dead by whose 

 labors and examples the world has been made brighter and better, and 

 labor honored and dignified. Yet there are some names so bright and 

 prominent that I cannot pass them by. Elihu Burritt, the learned black- 

 smith, who mastered without a teacher seventeen languages, working 

 at the same time from twelve to fourteen hours a day at the forge, and 

 four hours or more at his books. Whittier, the beloved Quaker poet, 

 worked on a farm and barefooted until past seventeen years of age. 

 Dr. Livingston, the great explorer and missionary, spent his boyhood 

 days in laboring on a farm. 



Gen. Burnside rose from the tailor's board to the command of the 

 army of the Potomac. Henry Wilson rose to the Vice-President's 

 chair from the shoemaker's bench, and McKenzie, late premier of 

 Canada, was once a stone mason. While laboring as a stone mason, 

 Hugh Miller fitted himself to become the leading geologist of his time, 

 and the writer of as pure English as has been written at any time. 



AVhile working as a book-binder, Prof. Faraday educated himself 

 to win all the honors that are offered for scientific discovery. 



Garibaldi, the patriot statesman and general, used to boil soap for 

 a living in America. 



To show that some trades give more opportunity for brain work at 

 the same time, let me offer in evidence a remarkable list of shoemakers. 

 I quote : 



But still great honors belong to these knights of the awl, for the "gentle craft " 

 is rich in the names of men who, breaking the bars of circumstances, have climbed 

 the steps where " fame's proud temple shines afar." Who founded the science of 

 botany? Linnreus, a shoemaker. Who disclosed the beauties and the marvels of 

 antique sculpture? Winckleman, a shoemaker. Who was the mainstay of the 

 Society of Antiquarians ? John Bond, a shoemaker. Who wrote the "Farmer's 

 Boy ? " Bloomfield, a shoemaker. Who established the London Quarterly Review? 

 •Gifford, a shoemaker. Who founded the Society of Friends? John Fox, a shoe- 

 maker. Who started the Ragged school movement? John Pounds, a shoemaker. 

 Who founded the Baptist Missions in India ? William Carey, a shoemaker. Who 

 gave the Bible to the Chinese in their own mother tongue ? Dr. Morrison, a shoe- 

 maker. Besides among the names which have become, in greater or less degree, 

 household property, may be found Hans Sache, the Poet of Nuremberg, and the 

 friend of Luther ; Richard Savage ; Sir Cloudesley Shovel, the redoubtable admi- 

 ral ; Sir Win. Reed, the Radical Hardy, and the Astrological Partridge, Sir Simon 

 Eyre, Jacob Boeham, Samuel Drew, William Huntington, Hans Christian Ander- 

 sen, Dr. Marshman, Dr. John Kitto, Thomas Edwards, •' the Pallssy of Scotland," 

 and Thomas Cooper, author of " Purgatory of Suicides " — all sons of Crispin before 

 they turned their thoughts and energies into new channels. 



Who will claim that labor degraded a Stephenson, a Whitney, an 

 Ericson or Edison, a McCormick, a Manny, and in the field of letters 

 .a Burns, a Bryant, a Greeley, a Whittier. 



