92 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



NATIONAL INDUSTRY, THE TRUE SOURCE OF 

 NATIONAL GREATNESS. 



From an Address before the Norfolk Agricultural Society, Sept. 29, 1858. 



BY JOHN S. ELDRIDGE. 



Man's moral and intellectual greatness consists rather in what 

 he is capable of becoming, than what he really is. Hence he 

 is under that " law of progress," which so vividly marks his 

 career through all ages and nations, and which God seems to 

 have stamped upon his being. Physical laws of climate may 

 control some of his peculiarities, may create some idyosyncra- 

 cies, and direct some of his tendencies, but without the active 

 force of another law, which is that of labor, man would remain 

 in his normal condition. Progress, then, is the compensatory 

 reward of labor ; and just in proportion to the directness, 

 intensity and intelligence of that labor, will all progress become 

 intrinsically valuable to society, and priceless to the individual. 

 Therefore we deduce the ii'uth that labor is the great primary 

 law of man's nature, underlying and paramount to the law of 

 progress. Hence labor is no curse, but one of the divinest 

 blessings, and every effort to get rid of honest industry is a 

 violation of our integrity to the law of God, and we become his 

 unfaithful representatives on the earth. 



" There is," says Carlyle, " a perennial nobleness and even 

 sacredness in work. Were he never so benighted, forgetful of 

 his high calling, there is always hope in a man that actually and 

 earnestly works ; in idleness alone is there perpetual despair." 

 By work, I do not mean mere manual labor only, but every 

 effort of the mind as well as of the body. I embrace all men 

 in that great brotherliood of laborers ; he who plies the shuttle 

 at Lowell, woi'ks the steel at Sheffield, stands swart and grim 

 amidst the fiery forges at Pittsburg, or whose scythe sings in 

 the falling grass. These are not one jot the better laborers than 



