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than others of equal natural endowment in a different line of 

 life. 



There is the broad question, besides, running under all this 

 ground, as to the degree of merely intellectual development 

 that is, on the whole, desirable with man. Some strong physi- 

 cal basis is needed. What proportions of mental and of 

 bodily exercise and development are required for the highest 

 efficiency of life in a single person, is not settled. For a whole 

 community or race the question has far more of complication, 

 and no one can tell how it may yet be solved. Unbalanced 

 mental development weakens the stock of life. It is written 

 in nature that man shall not live alone by schooling. There 

 are those in our day that should study the writing, A general 

 eagerness, therefore, for intellectual pursuits, while full of 

 promise, might have also its elements of danger for a people ; 

 especially if joined with a distaste for manual labors. The 

 following too far such a mode of life, besides its other diffi- 

 culties, is open to this serious embarrassment, that a people 

 could not live to pursue it. And when we consider the leading 

 place which agriculture holds, by the appointment of nature, 

 among all occupations, we may perhaps conclude that that 

 admixture which it requires or allows of bodily and mental 

 exercise is near to the proportion that will be found on the 

 whole and for most persons to be best. 



And again the end of life is not in intellectual growth alone, 

 even if there were no checks upon it. It is in capacity to act 

 strongly and well. Goodness enters into it, and power of will 

 towards that. The best life is that which is most intelligently 

 and forciljly directed towards good. These other elements the 

 man of studious life may sometimes miss. The man of labor 

 may gain them, and stand before him by any measure of- 

 strength and valuable accomplishment. The farmer has much 

 to help him do it. His business in this respect brings him as 

 near to the due balance of life, it may be, as any. 



Books are not all. And moreover for the most of wisdom 

 they have, one does not need a vast multitude of them to find 

 it. There is a popular delusion on this point, which the 



