22 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



his conceptions, exalt his aims, strengthen his character, make 

 liim a wiser, a better and a nobler man. 



The highest end, therefore, which every avocation has to 

 serve, is the Manhood of its subject ; a strong, thoughtful, sym- 

 pathetic, upright and reverend manhood. For it is not age that 

 makes a man. It is the full expansion and exercise of all the 

 faculties of his nature. This expansion and exercise is the true 

 end and aim of life. To serve that end, to secure this result, 

 all social, educational, religious influences are to minister, each 

 working in its own domain. Tlie very calling a man pursues 

 helps on this result. If as farmer, worker, trader, physician, 

 jurist, statesman, or preacher, he is not, through the very 

 agencies and activities of his avocation becoming a truer and 

 nobler man, then has his avocation failed of accomplishing its 

 highest end. It may have brought abundance. It may have 

 conferred the honors of success. But, if with these it has 

 narrowed and belittled the man, withered his social nature, 

 dwarfed his mental and moral stature, (for if it have not 

 expanded it must have contracted his spiritual being,) then in 

 its highest purpose has it proved itself a miscarriage and a 

 failure. 



Now it seems to me, looking off from my point of observation 

 upon the various departments of labor, that there is none more 

 favorable to manly growth, a broad, generous development of 

 nature's powers, than that of the cultivator of the soil. It 

 seems to me that agriculture in a special and direct sense ought 

 to minister to a real manhood, such as we have described: that 

 through the farmer should come, most efficiently, the fullest 

 outgrowth of the man. It is not that in his calling there are 

 no hindrances, or retarding influences. For every calling has 

 these, though in differing degrees. Yet the farmer's, I think, 

 has less than many others, while its favoring influences are in 

 some respects greater than those of other forms of toil. 



Let me call your attention to some of the elements of man- 

 hood, which an agricultural life either directly fosters and pro- 

 motes, or to some extent involves and introduces. 



I. First and most palpable of these is physical vigor. The 

 value of a robust constitution, bodily energy, the power of 

 endurance, and of effort, which health and strength impart, can 

 hardly be overestimated. They arc the first essential of man- 



