No. 5. 



Labour.— Take care of your Woodlands. 



153 



Labour. 



The following extract is made from an address late- 

 ly delivered by Horace Greely, before the liteniry soci- 

 eties of Hamilton College, on -'The Discipline and 

 Duties of tlie Scholar." How numerous are llic in- 

 stances of enthusiastic students consuming the best 

 boon of life in their favourite pursuits, and when the 

 goal of their ambition is gained, the me'ancholy truth, 

 for almost the first time is learned, that consumption or 

 dyspepsia must be the perpetual and irremediable draw- 

 back upon its enjoyment: with the tardy reflection 

 too that exercise and bodily labour would not only 

 have averted these. evils, but have given a continual 

 freshness to life and its objects, which the listlessness, 

 attendant on sedentary pursuits prevented them from 

 being acquainted vs'ith. — Ed. 



Labour ! ble.ssed boon of heaven, to allevi- 

 ate the horrors and purify the tendencies of our 

 fallen state ! When shall its benefits and its 

 joys be brought home to each and to all ! 

 ' We make it a curse and a burthen by so re- 

 garding it, as we may any other blessing; 

 but the truth is irrepressible, that only he 

 who is familiar with labour, and loves it, can 

 either improve or enjoy life. The man whose 

 only stimulant to exertion in any field is the 

 hope of individual gain, can hardly have 

 risen above the condition of a slave. We 

 must learn to be true workers — our frames 

 need it — our unperverted impulses demand 



it our very souls, if unstifled, cry out lor 



it. Most earnestly, then, do I record my 

 protest against the all but universal pro- 

 scription which divorces entirely, profound 

 study from manual labour — which, in its at- 

 tention to the intellectual and moral nature 

 of the student, forgets that he has also a 

 physical frame to be developed and invigo- 

 rated. Of course, you will not understand 

 me as assuming, that the usual routine of 

 student life forgets or disregards the neces- 

 sity of physical exercise — I know better. I 

 will not doubt that wherever thoughtful, con- 

 scientious and cultivated men have charge 

 of the education of youth, there are, there 

 must be, abundant inculcations of the neces- 

 sity of exercise, and the value of health; 

 also of the danger of losing the latter through 

 neglect of the former. I will not doubt that 

 abundant opportunities and facilities for ex- 

 ercise are everywhere afforded. Yet what 

 is the result! Do the mass of our young 

 men finish their studies with stronger con- 

 stitutions, sturdier frames, more athletic 

 limbs, than they brought away from their 

 parental firesides? Not within the sphere 

 of my observation — far otherwise. I have 

 known many dyspepsias, consumptions, debi- 

 lities, v.'hich traced their orign to the semina- 

 ries: I do not remember any that were cured 

 there; I have known the stout lad in the 



district school, who graduated a feeble inva- 

 lid from the university. My conviction is, 

 that the physical department of education 

 has decidedly retrograded since the days of 

 Greek freedom and glory. Our prevalent 

 error is not one of method and detail — it is 

 fundamental. We have lost the true basis 

 ordained for the harmonious and healthful 

 developement of the whole human being, in 

 separating the education of the head from 

 the education of the hands. We have dared 

 to disregard that divine fiat, first of punish- 

 ments, and therefore first also of mercies— ' Iti 

 the sweat of tliy face shalt thou eat bread ! 

 Shunning this appointed path, we have 

 sought out inventions, which we term exer- 

 cise" recreation, relaxation. Heaven placid- 

 ly, but inexorably disallows them. I do not 

 say that for the cramped, soul-dwarfed, unde- 

 veloped miner, delving for six days ot each 

 week in some stinted Egyptian labyrinth in 

 the bowels of the earth, there may not be 

 appropriate recreation in the free air and 

 sunshine. Malign circumstance has grudg- 

 ed him a full developement— his class are 

 sio-nificantly advertised for as 'Hands want- 

 ecf'_not men. But to the true and whole 

 man each successive duty is the proper reliet 

 fi-om the preceding, and in the regular alte- 

 ration of labours— now those which tax 

 mainly the intellect, next those which ap- 

 peal mainly to the sinews— is the needed 

 relaxation best attained. Thus only sirall 

 life be rendered consistent and harmonious ; 

 thus shall each hour be dignified and render- 

 ed heroic. 



Take care of your Woodlands. 



There are very few things which farmers 

 in general exhibit such gross waste and want 

 of forethought, as in their treatment of their 

 woodlands. Dependent as the great majority 

 must always be on these for fuel; diminish- 

 iniv rapidly as they must be in our climate 

 annually; a large proportion timbered witli 

 trees that do not readily shoot up, and will 

 not grow again without some protection; we 

 '=till see the noble trees of our original forest 

 as carelessly and as uselessly felled as though 

 they were not the growth of centuries, and 

 like Jonah's gourd, would spring up again in 

 a nio-ht. In the management of our wood- 

 lands some things are deserving of notice, 

 that are too generally entirely overlooked. 



The first thing, and it is an indispensable 

 one, is, that the woodlands should be well 

 fenced. VVe can never have a growth ot 

 youpo- timber, particularly on lands original- 

 ly covered with beech and maple, and their 

 kindred trees, unless this is done, It -is true, 



