CONCLUSION I A BIT OF PHILOSOPHY 297 



a man, a wise man at work with Nature, in sympathy 

 with her laws and decrees. Take the sullen and stub- 

 born soil (rendered so by the bad treatment of your 

 predecessor) and render it so gentle and pliable and re- 

 sponsive that henceforth it will do your will. 



Eliminate hand work: use machinery. The farmer 

 enters into his own at the very moment he realizes that he 

 ought to be educated ; when he uses his powers of thought 

 to till his land and to grow his crops ; when he uses his 

 muscles less and his brain more ; when he spares the 

 physical body and crowds the tool or machine he has 

 created. The effect of the elimination of hand labor and 

 the use of muscle-saving machinery on the physical and 

 mental man is soon apparent. Before the coming of ma- 

 chinery this was true, as Edward Markham has said: 



Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox, 



He stands and leans on his hoe and gazes on the ground; 



The emptiness of the ages on his face, 



And on his back the burdens of the world. 



While now he rides and directs every sort of machine 

 that is made to do his will, he fittingly represents his 

 highest and loftiest mission. Now he stands as Henry 

 Jerome Stockard sees him : 



Imperial man! co-worker with the wind 



And rain and light and heat and cold, and all 



The agencies of God to feed and clothe 



And render beautiful and glad the world! 



Foremost among the causes that have occasioned this 

 change in physical and mental man, in adding case, com- 

 fort, and length of life, in making possible the nation's 

 wealth and greatness, is the application of machinery to 

 agriculture. 



