84 City Homes on Country Lanes 



sentence I have quoted. And in each of these there is 

 the germ of a great philosophy of every-day life. One 

 wonders if the orator himself realized all that he was 

 saying; or whether he simply followed Emerson's 

 counsel : "A man should learn to detect and watch that 

 gleam of light which flashes across his mind from 

 within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards 

 and sages." Consciously or unconsciously, he reflected 

 the Infinite Intelligence as surely in this as in the 

 famous speech at Gettysburg and the Second Inaug- 

 ural. 



Consider the significance of the expression, "the most 

 valuable of all arts" as applied to the cultivation of 

 the soil. Who had thought of it as in any sense an 

 art this matter of planting and digging potatoes? 

 An occasional poet or philosopher, perhaps ; but cer- 

 tainly this was not the idea entertained by the common 

 intelligence. Art, according to Noah Webster, is "the 

 skillful and systematic adaptability of means for the 

 attainment of some desired end; skill in accomplishing 

 a purpose." Science, according to the same authority, 

 is "knowledge 'gained and verified by exact observation, 

 and correct thinking especially as methodically formu- 

 lated and arranged in a rational system." 



During the past half century, and especially the 

 past two or three decades, thanks to Government and 

 university activities, American agriculture has ad- 

 vanced far along these lines. But Lincoln was speak- 

 ing to the pioneer settlers in a new State barely emerg- 

 ing from the wilderness Wisconsin in 1859. There 

 was very little science or system in the farming method 

 then and there in vogue. And in coupling "art" with 



