248 MY FARM. 



It is not aloue that men of this class Deling by a 

 particular method of culture, because their neighbor 

 hood lias followed the same for years, and the results 

 are fair ; but it is their pure contempt for being 

 taught; their undervaluation of what they do not 

 know, as not worth knowing ; their conviction that 

 their schooling, their faith, their principles, and their 

 understanding are among God s best works ; and 

 that other peoples schooling, faith, principles, and 

 views of truth whether human or Divine are in 

 ferior and unimportant. 



Yet withal, there is a shrewdness about them 

 which forces upon you the conviction that they do 

 not so much dislike to be taught, as dislike to seem 

 to be taught. They like to impress you with the 

 notion that what you may tell them is only a new 

 statement of what they know already. It is incon 

 ceivable that anything really worth knowing has not 

 come within the range of their opportunities ; or if 

 not theirs, then of their accredited teachers, the town 

 school-master, the parson, the doctor, or the news 

 paper. In short, all that they do not know which 

 may be worth knowing, is known in their town, and 

 they are in some sort partners to it. 



Talk to a small farmer of this class about Mechi, 

 or Lawes, or the new theory of Liebig, and he gives 

 a complacent, inexorable grin &amp;gt;as much as to say 



