■u'hon tlio youth were trained to manly sports and exercises. 

 Philosophy, poetry, oratory, music and sculj^ture followed and 

 flourished with the games to which the youth were invited. 

 The Romans adopted the Greek system, and with the same 

 success. Physical health is the chief corner stone of mental 

 power and moral greatness, and that is the product of the farm 

 as much as are sheep and oxen. Having considered the in- 

 fluence of agriculture upon physical man individually, let us 

 look a moment to its relations to man in society — to civiliza- 

 tion and to government, 



THE RELATIONS OF AGRICULTURE TO CIVILIZATION. 



Man's progress in civilization has been and must be through 

 the paths of agriculture; that comes first, as the foundation of 

 society. Manufactures which are a modification of the products 

 of the soil, and commerce which is a distribution or exchange 

 of them, must, in the necessity of the case, be secondary. 

 Land is the chief creative element in society, and arts and 

 trades, navigation and science, will move in unison with agri- 

 culture. The most obvious distinction between the savage and 

 civilized man, is in the respective relations in which they 

 stand to the soil. The one has no fixed abode ; and as long as 

 he has none he makes no progress ; the other attaches himself 

 to a spot which he calls home. This he loves from the associ- 

 ations of the past; it is the place where his fathers lived and 

 died and were buried, or which he has obtained by his own 

 toils. He values it too for the present ; it is the home of his 

 wife — it was the birthplace of his children — it is the most 

 loved spot of earth ; the stars sparkle brighter above it in the 

 distant spheres, the flowers are more beautiful and fragrant . 

 from its soil, the rains are more grateful to its fields, and the 

 fruits sweeter to the taste. Around the house, the barn, the 

 trees, the hills, the running brooks, and the very rocks, pleasant 

 memories and holy affections cluster; and he loves to adorn 

 and beautify and improve it. The very first steps of improve- 

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