THE PARMER AND THE MAN. 21 



an ambition, whose nature and action you very well understand, 

 (for your presence and interest in this exhibition show that you 

 are actuated by it,) which would make the work, whatever it 

 may be, the very best of its kind. Whatever it undertakes, it 

 does thoroughly ; does in the best manner, and carries to the 

 highest results. You remember the reply of the Boston million- 

 aire, of the last generation, to the taunt — " I knew you when 

 you were nothing but a drummer boy." " DidnH I drum 

 well ? " The doing it well — that is all that is necessary to make 

 the humblest occupation honorable. To do it well — that is the 

 true ambition for every worker, in field or factory, in shop or 

 store, in church, court or congress ; whether he raise corn or 

 spin cotton, peg shoes or drive bargains, write sermons, offer 

 pleas, or make speeches. It is this ambition which gives us 

 eloquent preachers, distinguished lawyers, popular physicians, 

 eminent merchants, enterprising mechanics. And, gentlemen, 

 it is this ambition that gives us the successful farmer and the 

 model farm ; that begets the pleasant and profitable rivalry of 

 labor and production, which spurs each one on to do his best ; 

 that annually exhibits, side by side, the results of this competi- 

 tion, stimulating to greater efforts and to better achievements ; 

 that multiplies agricultural societies in every county in the state 

 and that leads the members of these associations to search out, 

 to commend to each other and adopt every new improvement, 

 of method or machinery, that can help them to the accomplish- 

 ment of their desire. Without this ambition we should have 

 had none of these things. The husbandman would have been 

 a lonely plodder in the way of his fathers, pursuing, year after 

 year, the same unenlightened course of labor, till his fields 

 become exhausted, his orchards die out, his crops diminish, his 

 energies flag, while nothing increases but his burdens and his 

 cares. 



But there is yet another and higher end of labor; a nobler 

 purpose which every man's avocation should serve. Not to give 

 him a living merely, not to inspire him with an ambition to do 

 his best in his work ; that is not all that a man's calling should 

 do for him. But I say that, besides all this, his calling must do 

 more for him — more than to feed and clothe him, or to honor 

 hira by his success in it. It must quicken his thought, enlarge 



