The School of the Future 1 09 



has no serviceable employment, and he 

 drifts ; the farm boy has his chores to do 

 after school. 



I cannot leave this subject without again 

 denying the common notion that the farm 

 boy's life is mere drudgery. Much of the 

 work is laborious, and this it shares with all 

 work that is productive ; for the easier the 

 job the less it is worth doing. But every 

 piece of farm work is also an attempt to solve 

 a problem, and therefore it should have its 

 intellectual interest. It needs but the inform- 

 ing of the mind and the quickening of the 

 imagination to raise any constructive and 

 creative work above the level of drudgery. 

 It is not mere dull work to follow the plow 

 I have followed it day after day if one 

 is conscious of all the myriad forces that are 

 set at work by the breaking of the furrow ; 

 and there is always the landscape, the free 

 fields, the clean soil, the rain, the promise of 

 the crops. I cannot help wondering why it 

 is that men will eagerly seek work in the 

 grease and grime of a noisy factory, but will 



