772 MASS. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



FARMERS' CLUBS. 



BY STEPHEN REED, M. D. 



In the material world, close contact with a little motion is 

 indispensable to heat, life, and light. Strange as it may seem, 

 this is no less true in the province of mind. We all know, 

 that unless mind comes in contact with mind, and thought 

 awakens and calls out thought, an alpine cap of eternal snow 

 is not more dead and cold than the perceptive and reasoning 

 faculties of our race. The farmer is placed under peculiar 

 temptations. The earth, with whose embrace he comes more 

 closely in contact than any other person, is a bounteous mother. 

 Unasked, she makes her guests large donations, and is ever 

 ready to return, in large measures, all the favors she receives 

 from them. In the farmer's hand she places her gifts, to be 

 dispensed by him to others. His mill is first on the stream, and 

 water, if water there is, to him is sure. The man below, whose 

 supply of water is short and precarious, is the man from whom 

 we expect new discoveries and valuable improvements in the 

 construction of water wheels and the application of water 

 power. Mind, acting with mind, may do more for the latter, 

 than position for the former. Yet, while this is acknowledged, 

 the temptation is strong in the former to grind on in the old 

 way. 



****** 



If it is true, then, that the mind is the measure of the man, 

 the farmer must be educated, or he must sink from his present 

 position. He must be better educated, or he cannot hold his 

 present relative position. It is the true province of education 

 to draw out, and paradoxical as it may seem, the more you 

 draw out of the mind, the more there is left. The more it 

 gives to-day, the more it will be able to give to-morrow. True, 

 you may tumble knowledge into the mind as you may tumble 

 goods into your house, until you cannot get in yourself, or 

 make any use of what is in it, but this is not education. It is 

 not that action of mind, that mental labor, which produces 

 mental power. Far different from this is the Farmers' Club. 



