40 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1906 



comes at all, indirectly by service. So there is no such thing 

 as finding true greatness by searching for it directly. One of 

 the greatest lessons to teach the boy is that he is not to do what 

 he likes but to like what he does. 



I saw a picture the other day of the "Barefoot Boy" that 

 illustrates just what I want : 



''Blessings on thee little man, 

 Barefoot boy with cheek of tan. 

 With thy turned up pantaloons, 

 And thy merry whistled tunes; 

 With thy red lip, redder still, 

 Kissed by strawberries on the hill; 

 From my heart I give the joy, 

 I was once a barefoot boy." 



There was no idleness in that boy, but place a conquering 

 hero out in a ten-acre lot on a hot summer day to pick up 

 stones, and he will get the reputation of being a lazy boy. 



Sometimes the boy wants to do right and hardly knows 

 how, and I would like to tell the boys that there are fifty ways in 

 which to make a beginning. Fear God. Honor your parents. 

 Be an honest boy. Never violate your word nor do any act 

 that will cause you to be ashamed. Be kind to all dumb ani- 

 mals. If a boy never begins he will never amount to anything. 

 If the beginning sets him thinking it will keep him thinking 

 and these thoughts will improve him. Outcasts of this world 

 were made so because they did not have the courage to begin, 

 and that is where our help comes in. 



It has been said that a boy brought up on a farm is the 

 laziest of all boys. A farm is a poor place for a boy unless the 

 farmer has heart and soul enough to give him a chance, and 

 some farmers think too much of what they themselves want and 

 too little of what their boys do. The farmer forgets that he 

 was once a boy. There is no recreation for the boy. The 

 home affections have been sadly neglected so that in the heart 

 of the boy there is an unsatisfied place. As there is nothing to 

 make the farm attractive a disposition springs up to leave the 

 farm. Is this picture overdrawn ? How many times have the 

 father and mother watched with sorrow and sadness the boy, 



