20 PLAIN AND PLEASANT TALK 



ily ? Do you lay out as much money for books as you do 

 for tobacco? In looking forward to the next year, you 

 ought to mark out your personal course by good resolu- 

 tions, and your business coui'se by a definite plan of opera- 

 tions. It would be well if a farmer should knew before- 

 hand everything he means to do ; and afterwards, if he has 

 kept such an account that you can tell anything that you 

 have done. 



Sleighing for the young and gay, and warm fire-sides for 

 the aged, are what are now most thought of. Those who 

 are best provided with the comforts of life should remem- 

 ber their less favored brethren. 



EDUCATED FARMERS. 



It is time for those who do not believe ignorance to be a 

 blessing, to move in behalf of common schools. Many 

 teachers are not practised even in the rudiments of the 

 spelling-book ; and as for reading, they stumble along the 

 sentences, like a drunken man on a rough road. Their 

 ^'' hand-write^'' as they felicitously style the hieroglyphics, 

 would be a match for Champollion, even if he did decipher 

 the Egyptian inscriptions. But a more detestable fact is, 

 that sometimes their morals are bad ; they are intemperate, 

 coarse, and ill-tempered; and wholly unfit to inspire the 

 minds of the pupils with one generous or pure sentiment. 

 We do not mean to characterize the hody of the com- 

 mon schoolmasters by these remarks; but that any con- 

 siderable portion of them should be such, is a disgraceful 

 evidence of the low state of education. 



Farmers and mechanics ! this is a subject which comes 

 home to you. Crafty politicians are constantly calling you 

 the hone and sinew of the land ; and you may depend upon 

 it that you will never be anything else but bone and sinew 



