EDUCATION OF FAR]MERS' SONS. 3 



his profession in earnest, knowing and feeling that he has com- 

 menced it. If he is pnt to any particular farm-work, he should 

 understand why that work is to be done, and why at that time, 

 and if told to do it in a particular way, he should understand 

 why it is to be done in that rather than in a different way. He 

 should be led to inquire the reason of and for every thing, to 

 think and judge, to read and study, to learn theory and j)ractice 

 together, and test the former by the latter. In this mode, and 

 in this only, can he commence his career with the same advan- 

 tages which attend the young man entering upon any other 

 kind of business. It is generally the first step in life which 

 gives direction to its whole future march. It is the resolution 

 early formed which imparts courage to youth and strength to 

 manhood. Let the young farmer have but a fair start, and he 

 need not ask any odds. 



In the next place, and of equal, and perhaps greater impor- 

 tance, the young man who is to become a farmer should at once 

 feel and realize that the occupation upon which he is entering 

 is not a mere mechanical routine of labor ; that while it is one 

 which may require severe physical toil, it also calls for and 

 demands the exercise of the highest intellectual faculties. How 

 absurd is the idea that the brightest boy in a family must be 

 sent to school and college, and trained up as a merchant or 

 professional man, while his brother, not thought fit for any 

 thing else, will do to make a farmer of. While the father 

 thinks so, the sons of course imbibe the same notion, and this 

 shallow fallacy of thought hardens into real and disastrous fact, 

 and the result is, that just what is most needed to encourage, 

 improve, ennoble this great fundamental art and science of life, 

 to wit, intelligence, mind, are withdrawn from it to be expended 

 upon other pursuits. And this idea so acted upon, while it 

 tends to draw many of our best young men from the farm, has 

 also this bad result, that it depresses and discourages those who 

 are left, and leads them to believe that farming is mere drudgery, 

 — that they must work harder, fare poorer, be worse paid, and 

 pass less pleasant and happy lives than their fellows who pursue 

 other employments. Now, do you believe that God put man in 

 the Garden of Eden, " to dress it and to keep it," — that from 

 thence he was sent forth " to till the ground," and was told, 

 " in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return 



