18 The Farmstead 



It has been thought strange that the farmers 

 did not more quickly see and appreciate the 

 vahiable opportunities offered to their children. 

 But why should they at once appreciate and 

 value the princely provisions which were being 

 made for them? With no opportunity for edu- 

 cation along the lines of their profession, follow- 

 ing a more or less despised calling, from being 

 the butt and jest of those who had had educa- 

 tional advantages from time immemorial, how 

 could they at once understand the value and 

 far-reaching effects of the new order of things! 

 Then, too, these liberal provisions were made 

 somewhat in advance of the times. The pioneer 

 must first redeem the land from the wilderness, 

 fight the physical battles and endure the hard- 

 ships of a new country. As soon as these 

 primitive conditions passed away, the farmers 

 made an effort to bring their profession up to 

 a high intellectual plane and make it a delight- 

 ful and honorable calling. The evolution from 

 the primitive to the complex, from the age of 

 toil to the age of thought, from excessive mus- 

 cular effort to a more intelligent direction of 

 energy, from the narrow and prejudiced to the 

 broad and liberal, from the coarse and ugly to 

 the refined and beautiful, is proceeding rapidly, 

 and is in part realized. What happier task than 

 to give direction and help, sjanpathy and en- 



