FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 155 



their motto for the year^ "I will try to do my work better than well 

 enough." 



That person who accepts a position, or chooses a vocation chiefly 

 because it will be an easy place or calling, has elected to rust out 

 rather than to wear out. 



He chooses the corroding accumulations that cling and deaden and 

 refuse to move instead of the brightening and polishing process that 

 in time easily unlocks treasures to him at first undreamed of. But 

 on the other hand: 



"There are nettles everywhere; 



But smooth green grasses are more common still." 



So, over against those loitering, listless toilers are the hosts of la- 

 borers who find actual delight in working. To them duty is not drudg- 

 ery but service to their home ones and to the world at large. Work, 

 to such an one, is but one means of acknowledging the debt he owes 

 for what he possesses, a joy in being alive and able to be a part of 

 activity. He feels himself a co-worker with the Creator, a laborer 

 with the master, who, when a child, said, "My father worketh hither- 

 to and I work." 



In every neighborhood there are lustrous examples, for the world 

 is bright with the unselfish devotion to duty of unsung heroes and 

 uncrowned queens of labor. I have but to name one class — doctors — 

 country doctors — if you would have it. shine still brighter — and every 

 one of you recall some medical man who has stood unflinchingly at 

 his post for the use he could be in his profession. Only a few days ago 

 I read of one of these country doctors. It was written of him that 

 he left to his white-haired sister only the homestead and a few thou- 

 sand dollars as material heritage from his goodly life; but on his 

 books, as richer legacy, his executor found thirty per cent of his bills 

 of a lifetime uncollected and never to be collected, against which stood 

 the brief entry, "Poor, — no bill." 



Prof. Eliot ascribes Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer's self-sacrifice 

 largely to her early association with her physician father. 



In these days when industrial problems of every phase are in fer- 

 ment, it is well to remember that the essential things are the simpler 

 things, — heat light, clothing, food and shelter sufficient for health. 

 The remarkable things are the common — love, kindness, long-suffer- 

 ing and unselfish devotion to duty. The solution of many of our prob- 

 lems must be by a process of elimination, a sifting out the things 

 that are not "worth while." Machinery has almost made automatons 

 of workmen. There is much to excuse them for want of interest in 

 what they do. But in the farm and home work, there is ample scope 

 for letting the best of ourselves have full play. 



