MY FARM OF EDGEWOOD 



assurance, his scrutinizing contempt for out- 

 sidedness of whatever sort — his supreme and 

 ineradicable faith in his own pecuHar doctrine, 

 whether of politics, religion, ethnology, ham- 

 curing, manuring, or farming generally. 



It is not alone that men of this class cling by 

 a particular method of culture, because their 

 neighborhood has followed the same for years, 

 and the results are fair; but it is their pure 

 contempt for being taught; their undervalua- 

 tion of what they do not know, as not worth 

 knowing ; their conviction that their schooling, 

 their faith, their principles, and their under- 

 standing are among God's best works; and 

 that other people's schooling, faith, principles, 

 and views of truth— whether human or Divine 

 — are inferior 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 inconceivable that any- 

 thing 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 



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