134 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



has not yet come to us. These of whom we have spoken are 

 but stepping-stones to a grander one, who shall study man- 

 kind and life in all its phases, from war and the warrior to 

 the meekest soul and its environment. He will be the true 

 apostle, with a power to grasp all our American character- 

 istics, at the same time setting before us the highest standard 

 of living, as given us by One who preceded. In the mean 

 time, we accept all the good, but shall persist in saying that 

 in neither this generation nor the next will any be able to 

 dethrone our Longfellow, Bryant and Whittier, nor to ele- 

 vate Tolstoi, Brandes and the Frenchman Zola to occupy 

 those places so long held by Dickens, Thackeray, Haw- 

 thorne, Irving and others. 



Realism cannot be carried to that extent in a country 

 settled so recently by a class of people called Puritans, who 

 derived their peculiar characteristics from the daily contem- 

 plation of superior beings and eternal interests. If they 

 were unread in literature, they were deeply read in the 

 oracles of God. That spirit has not become entirely stag- 

 nant. We still aspire to get beyond our present condition, 

 hoping for a higher and better. How rarely do our words 

 reveal the aspirations of our real inner self. Therefore 

 there is need of looking beneath the surface of things. 



Books of the right sort are on every hand. We may 

 travel not only around the world, to all parts of it, with 

 scores of people, but to the sun and even the stars. Geol- 

 ogy takes us back to the formation of the earth, and all the 

 way down through the ages tells us wonderful stories from 

 out the truthful past. In the past really great men were 

 produced by our social conditions and form of government. 

 Their principle and conscience worked for the good of the 

 people in a way that resulted in power and influence. The 

 biographies of such men should furnish to every American 

 youth examples of industry, temperance, principle and 

 steadfast courage. ' To read means something more than 

 repeating lines or words. Everything a person does in this 

 direction should serve in future usefulness. Even the 

 child may so lay a foundation for knowledge. The history 

 of the earth and its geography; plain lessons in natural 



