INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 213 



It follows that, as few, if any, occupations are better 

 calculated to develop the physical structure than work 

 upon the soil, and at the same time offer a limitless field 

 for the most useful as well as the most pleasurable 

 mental training, we must conclude that the farmer, of all 

 others, should have a healthy, enduring brain. In fact, 

 his occupation should offer the medium through which 

 the highest development of the physical and mental may 

 be united in force for the production of the perfectly 

 developed man. 



" Once let the human race be cut off from personal 

 contact with the soil ; once let the conventionalities and 

 artificial restrictions of so-called civilization interfere 

 with the healthful simplicity of nature, and decay is 

 certain." ' 



Consequently, how immensely important may be our 

 dependence upon rural life — the farmer's well-developed 

 brain — for supplying whatever may be true and satisfying 

 in our present condition, and also for the continuance of 

 civilization itself ! 



Therefore, since science and the history of the growth 

 and development of nations testify to the vast importance 

 of physical completeness as a basis of brain power, and 

 that farm life is most conducive to this end, we require a 

 numerous body of tillers of the soil to supply our 

 national brain capacity. 



The fable of " Tellus, the Giant Son of the Earth," in 

 his valiant struggle with Hercules, and his final defeat 

 when deprived of contact with his " mother earth," is 

 certainly a striking parable of the condition of the human 

 family when the vast majority take no part in rural pur- 

 suits and the manly exercises. The Prince of Darkness 

 ' Dr. Woods Hutchinson. 



