272 BOAKD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



I think that among the earliest of these must have come 

 religious associations. 



However much we may diflfer in our theology, no serious- 

 minded person can ignore or belittle the religious element 

 in human nature. The associations of men in which this 

 element has been the controlling one stand second only 

 to governmental associations in the influence they have 

 exercised over human life and action. I here make 

 mention simply of the fact, reserving comment until a later 

 period. 



History informs us, that, as life became specialised and 

 skill developed, as manufactures grew and commerce arose, 

 and men united in the same governmental and religious asso- 

 ciations separated into groups, according to their several 

 avocations, the common interests and mutual antagonisms 

 inseparable from such a condition of things called into exist- 

 ence a group of associations, each designed to protect the 

 interests of an industrial class. The guilds, so prominent 

 and useful in Europe a few centuries since, are examples of 

 associations of this nature, and, with those already men- 

 tioned, give us historic illustrations of the three groups into 

 which nearly all associations of men may be gathered. They 

 are those which relate to government, those in which the 

 religious or benevolent element is the controlling one, and 

 those which stand for the interest of a group or class. Leav- 

 ing out of view for the present the associations peculiar to 

 the present age, I wish to ask your attention to a few charac- 

 teristics of those which are historical. 



Note this first. All associations which meet a permanent 

 need, and so endure from generation to generation, take on 

 organization. They become bodies. A directing head 

 crowns them ; a pulsating heart beats within them, and keeps 

 the life-current in circulation. They rush out with arms, 

 and grasp with hands ; and we can in no way so well de- 

 scribe their function and action as to use the terms of life and 

 the bodily organism. Now, to meet a common danger, men 

 might temporarily associate themselves, to separate as soon 

 as the danger had been averted. But, finding soon that dan- 

 ger is a constant attendant of life, they learn to make their 

 association permanent by organization. They gain not only 



