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videmur" We are able when we have faith in our ability. If 

 farmers generally consider their calling ignoble and low, that 

 it is mere bodily toil, a sullen contest* of animal strength with 

 inert matter, that they are but hewers of wood and drawers of 

 water, so will it be and such will they become. But if, on the 

 other hand, they have just and true ideas of themselves and 

 their vocation, that it is elevated and ennobling, that not only 

 are they with strong hands to wage successful war against 

 brute forces, but that ripe with intelligence they are to share 

 in the triumphs of mind over matter, then will they and all 

 things around them be transformed. They will walk the earth 

 with a more elastic step. The Very grass beneath their feet 

 will wear a livelier green. The blue sky above their heads 

 will bend more brightly. The summer breezes will whisper 

 new hopes. The winter storms will inspire fresh courage. 

 Thinking, reasoning, as well as working men, with cultivated 

 minds and aspiring souls, they will respect themselves and be 

 respected of others, they will dignify and adorn labor, they 

 will feel and know, and the world will see how enviable and 

 exalted is their position, and that with the farmer's lot there 

 is none which can compare for real happiness and solid good. 



Having started, then, to become a farmer, not with a sort of 

 floating idea that such may possibly be his permanent business, 

 but, in the first place, with a fixed and well-defined purpose, 

 and, in the second place, with a correct idea of the nature and 

 importance of the business, and what it imperatively demands 

 for full success — the young farmer is ready to go to work, or 

 rather he is ready to learn how to work, to serve his appren- 

 ticeship, to fit himself for the duties of life. In truth, this 

 preparation is to last his whole life-time. Whoever has to deal 

 with nature and her processes, is a perpetual learner. He 

 studies in a school whose lessons are never completed, whose* 

 teachings have no end. The great forces and the very ele- 

 ments are his instructors. Each rolling year, each passing 

 season, unfold new problems to be solved, new mysteries to be 

 fathomed, and the scholar, as he grows wise, grows humble, for 



