350 -HISTORY OF THE WHEEL AND ALLIANCE. 



wives and families together, so that they may know each 

 other better, and be brought into a closer connection and 

 sympathy than now exists. If there is anything which 

 tends to break up the humdrum life which the farmers have 

 been living, and are living, it should be fostered with every 

 possible means. Of all the evils that fetter and hamper 

 this class of our people, there is nothing so destructive to 

 that happiness human beings were permanently destined 

 to enjoy, as the seclusion in which they drag out their lives. 

 Isolated from the arena of business life, with nothing to 

 stimulate thought, they too often live and die strangers to 

 those finer and nobler feelings which are so readily nur- 

 tured by commingling of society. To whatsoever cause it 

 may be accredited the farming class are not as socially 

 inclined as they were in the early history of the country 

 when they would walk ten miles to attend a house-raising 

 of a week-day or preaching on Sunday. This disposition 

 of itself tends to a neglect of the common interests, and 

 the nurturing of those passions and prejudices so frequently 

 manifested during times of political excitement. In the 

 monthly meetings of the subordinate Unions, the farmers 

 of a community are brought together twelve times a year 

 if no oftener, and should be accompanied with their wives 

 and daughters. The ordinary proceedings of each meet- 

 ing should be such as to interest and instruct them, and 

 place them in a happy frame of mind for the cultivation 

 and promotion of social relations. Acquaintances are made, 

 new friendships are formed, and old ones strengthened. 

 The farmer is taught that the world does not end for him 

 at the boundaries of his farm; that there are hopes, fears, 

 joys and sorrows beyond his domain in which it his duty 

 to take an interest; that the fields for the cultivation of the 

 intellect are broader than his acres of wheat, and more 

 extensive than his fields of corn; that there is a moral, an 

 intellectual, and social side to farm life. That if he would 



