37 



ESSAY 



Written by Sarah E. Bosworth, of Pembroke, and read at 

 Farmers' Institute, December 15, 1881. 

 It would seem that a paper to be read before an Agricul- 

 tural Society should be written upon the subject of Agricul- 

 ture ; but as important as that subject is and worthy of great 

 discussion and improvement ; there is, I think, a subject 

 which comes before all others in our material life, and which 

 it seems to me, men almost entirely overlook ; that is the 

 relation of adults towards boys and girls. Almost every one 

 appears to think they have done tJieir duty, when they draw 

 down their faces and say with a sigh, "well, young folks 

 didn't do so when I was young." Standing afar off as the 

 Pharisee in prayer, thankful that they were not as the young 

 folks are now ; but let us stop and carefully look at the mat- 

 ter a few moments and we shall see that we are to blame 

 today in a great measure for what we call the "Degeneracy 

 of the Times." If the present boys and girls are not as good 

 as the generation before them, we must admit that it is due 

 in a great measure to our not having done our duty as well 

 as the generation before us did theirs. "As ye sow, so shall 

 ye reap," is a fixed law now and forever. Our present sys- 

 tem of education seems to breed contempt for all manual 

 labor, fostering the fatal poisonous idea "the world owes us 

 a living," or one must live by one's wits. The various indus- 

 tries of life are despised and left to foreigners, and we crowd 

 our boys and girls into shops, stores and offices, dooming 

 them to a life of temptation and often poverty. Most of the 

 education that is given the young, especially girls, is of no 

 real practical value, it will never stand the test of use and 

 trial to place them on even the first round of the steep lad- 



