454 HISTORY OF THE GRANGE MOVEMENT; OK, 



the good things of this life, and this is made the happy 

 medium whereby introductions are made and many 

 pleasing and lasting acquaintances are formed. 



" Mankind, in their natures, are social beings, and 

 when in solitude all pine for social and friendly inter- 

 course. This being an organization designed especially 

 for farmers, we say that its social features are particu- 

 larly pleasing, and well adapted to meet the necessity 

 which exists for some method to bring them and their 

 wives and families together, so that they may know 

 each other better, and be brought into a closer connec- 

 tion and sympathy than now exists. 



" In fact, the aid already rendered to our Order by 

 woman is invaluable, and her services could not well 

 be dispensed with. To divest the Order of this feature 

 would be to go far toward despoiling it, and detract 

 greatly from the enjoyment now felt in all our meet- 

 ings. We say, then, that woman's presence is indis- 

 pensable in all places where good conduct and moral 

 and religious principles are sought to be inculcated." 



" Socially," says Captain E. L. Hovey, in an address 

 delivered at St. Johnsbury, Vermont, February 22d, 

 1872, " it is the right thing in the right place, for it is 

 a Farmers' Society. If there is anything that tends 

 to break up the humdrum life they have been living, 

 and are living, it should be fostered with every possible 

 means. Of all the evils that fetter and hamper this 

 class of our people, there is nothing so destructive of 

 that happiness human beings were permanently des- 

 tined to enjoy as the seclusion in which they drag out 

 their lives. Isolated from the arena of business life, 

 with nothing to stimulate thought, they too often live 

 and die strangers to any of those finer and ennobling 



