200 THE GROUNDSWELL. 



the country, by the common methods of barter and sale, it 

 will become obvious to the most casual observer that their 

 lack of education has made the masses, constantly, the prey 

 of sharpers. It is not the reading and thinking portion of 

 the agricultural world who are readily victimized. And I 

 would that these words, uttered in all singleness of purpose, 

 might be taken home by each individual reader. Let him 

 ask if he really has done himself and his children justice, in 

 using all the means for education that were available. If so, 

 the words do not apply to him. 



I repeat, that American farmers, as a class, have been con 

 tent to exist from year to year, and decade to decade, in this 

 dull, unprogressive manner. They have been seeking to 

 disenthrall themselves for generations, but have failed from 

 the fact that, until within the last twenty years they have 

 not r.een a reading, thinking class. They have received educa 

 tion sufficient to enable them to read intelligently their 

 Bible, hymn-book, and, at long intervals, perhaps, a news 

 paper the last, in too many cases, borrowed from some 

 more enterprising neighbor; but the fact itself is patent 

 and incontrovertible that they have been much behind other 

 classes in their practical information concerning the ordinary, 

 every-day affairs of the business world. Hence, not know 

 ing the true values of what they had to sell, they were con 

 tinually overreached by the buyer, who had made it his 

 especial business to inform himself on this point. 



THE VILLAGE MERCHANT AS AN EXTORTIONER. 



The farmer saw the merchant, whom for want of a better 

 name he began to call a middle man, accumulating wealth 

 from year to year, and living in apparent comfort from the 

 profits of bargain and sale, while he himself had a hard pull 



