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to eat thoir bread, leaving the toil of producing it to the uneducated. 

 This was not an insupportable evil to the working bees, so long as the 

 class of drones remained very small. But now, especially in these 

 free States, nearly all are educated — quite too nearly all, to leave 

 the labor of the uneducated, in any wise adequate to the support of 

 the whole. It follows from this that henceforth educated people must 

 labor. Otherwise, education itself would become a positive and in- 

 tolerable evil. No country can sustain, in idleness, more than a 

 small per centage of its numbers. The great majority must labor at 

 something productive. From these premises the problem springs — 

 "How can labor and education be the most satisfactorily combined?" 



By the "mud- sill " theory it is assumed that labor and education 

 are incompatible; and any practical combination of them impossible. 

 According to that theory, a blind horse upon a tread mill, is a perfect 

 illustration of what a laborer should be — all the better for being 

 blind, that he could not kick understandingly. According to that 

 theory, the education of laborers, is not only useless, but pernicious 

 and dangerous. In fact, it is, in some sort, deemed a misfortune that 

 laborers should have heads at all. Those same heads are regarded as 

 explosive materials, only to be safely kept in damp places, as far as 

 possible from that peculiar sort of fire which ignites them. A 

 Yankee v/ho could invent a strong handed man without a head would re- 

 ceive the everlasting gratitude of the " mud - sill " advocates. 



But free labor says "no!" Free labor argues, that as the Author 

 of man makes every individual with one head and one pair of hands, 

 it was probably intended that heads and hands should co-operate as 

 friends; and that that particular head, should direct and control that 

 pair of hands. As each man has one mouth to be fed, and one pair of 

 hands to furnish food, it was probably intended that that particular 

 pair of hands should feed that particular mouth — that each head is the 

 natural guardian, director and protector of the hands and mouth in- 

 separbly connected v/ith it; and that being so, every head should be 

 cultivated, and improved, by whatever will add to its capacity for 

 performing its charge. In one word free labor insists on universal 

 education. 



I have so far stated the opposite theories of " mud - sill " and "free 

 labor" without declaring any preference of my ovm between them. On 

 an occasion like this I ought not to declare any. I suppose, however, 

 I shall not be mistaken, in assuming as a fact, that the people of 

 Wisconsin prefer free labor, with its natural companion, education. 



This leads to the further reflection, that no other human occupa- 

 tion opens so wide a field for the profitable and agreeable combination 

 of labor with cultivated thought, as agriculture. I know nothing 



