11 



Give her similar opportunity to surprise you. There will be found not a little in 

 the mutual admiration thus elicited to heal family jars, and to bring back the ex- 

 periences of courtship and the of honeymoon. 



NEIGHBORHOOD FELLOWSHIP. 



As a further means of improvement, let more be made of good neighborhood 

 feUowship, not only in the way of occasional social gatherings, but by stated or- 

 ganizations that shall combine some object of information and intellectual un- 

 provement with social enjoyment. A debating-club or reading-club kept up reg- 

 ularly during the winter months in the district school-house or at the farm houses 

 in turn would do wonders in the course of years to remedy the deficiencies in the 

 farmer's life. Magazine and book clubs would supply at sUght cost to the indi- 

 vidual good reading matter for whole neighborhoods. In my town we have a 

 farmer's club now more than twenty years old, that has accomplished much, not 

 only in improving the methods of agriculture but in quickening the intellectual 

 and social life of its members. Why should there not be a similar organization in 

 ever}' town ? It is not a thing to be deplored that some of the social customs of 

 the fathers died with them. The husking-bees, and other similar gatherings, with 

 their rum and hard cider, with their late hours and coarse jollity, are mainly ex- 

 tinct, and may they never return. But may there not be something in their place 

 of a different kind to meet the more refined wants of the present age ? 



INTEKCOUBSE WITH MEN. 



Again let the farmer consider it a dutj' which he owes to himself to improve 

 to the utmost his opportunities for mingling with his fellow-men. Let him im- 

 itate the example of prQfessional and business men in taking a brief yearly vaca- 

 tion when he may freshen up his mind by contact with new men and new scenes. 

 Let him make an occasional trip to the city. Let him not shun pubUc duty when 

 it falls naturally to his lot. Do not seek office, but if it comes, consider it as much 

 your duty as anybody's to suffer and draw a salary for your country's sake. There 

 is no teUing, you know, now-a-days, where the poHtical Ughtnings may strike ; 

 and so if your fellow-citizens elect you as selectman or county commissioner, or 

 to the legislature, do not in your modesty dechne the honor, but go ! Be wilhng 

 to go anywhere in the hne of patriotic self-denial, even to Congress, or to the 

 White House 1 A little ambition and self-sufficiency will not hurt you a bit. It 

 will help to lift you out of the ruts, and to break through the limitations that now 

 surround your hfe. 



INTEREST IN RELIGION AND ITS INSTITUTIONS. 



I am not here to preach a sermon, but it would be a strange deficiency in this 

 discussion to overlook one other means of improvement for the farmer, and that 

 the highest of all ; I mean an interest in rehgion and in religious institutions. In 

 urging this point I do not speak as a clergyman, but rather in the interest of so- 

 cial science. I do not urge, as perhaps I might, the importance of rehgion from 

 its connection with the hfe to come, but from its connection with this hfe. I 

 speak of it as a civilizer, as an educator, as a means of refinement to the intellec- 

 tual and social nature. All men need its influence in this direction : the farmer 

 especially needs it from his lack of other and unattainable means of culture. 

 There can be httle question, I think, that it was the religion of the fathers of New 

 England that saved their intellectual and social life. Theological discussion quick- 

 ened their powers of thought. The weekly- attendance at church afforded the 

 contact with their fellow-men needful for the cultivation of social sympathy. Their 



