THE HOME EDUCATION OF THE RURAL DISTRICTS. 399 



and sustains the nation, it is the basis of all material wealth ; and as 

 it supports all other professions and callings, it is intrinsically the 

 parent and superior of them all. Let the American farmer's wife 

 never cease to teach her sons, that though other callings may be 

 more lucrative, yet there is none so true and so safe as that of the 

 fanner, let her teach her daughters that, fascinating and brilliant as 

 many other positions appear outwardly, there is none with so much 

 intrinsic satisfaction as the life of a really intelligent proprietor of 

 the soil, and above all, let her show by the spirit of intelligence, order, 

 neatness, taste, and that beauty of propriety, which is the highest 

 beauty in her home, that she really knows, understands, and enjoys 

 her position as a wife and mother of a farmer's family let us have 

 but a few earnest apostles of this kind, and the condition and pros- 

 perity of the agricultural class, intellectually and socially, will 

 brighten, as the day brightens after the first few bars of golden light 

 tinge the eastern horizon. 



We are glad to see and record such signs of daybreak in the 

 shape of a recognition of the low social state which we deplore, and 

 a cry for reform which now and then make themselves hc-tird, 

 here and there in the country. Major Patrick a gentleman whom 

 we have not the pleasure of knowing, though we most cordially 

 shake hands with him mentally, has delivered an address before the 

 Jefferson County Agricultural Society in the State of New- York, in 

 which he has touched with no ordinary skill upon this very topic. 

 The two pictures which follow are as faithful as those of a Dutch 

 master, and we hang them up here, conspicuously, in our columns, 

 as being more worthy of study by our farmers' families, than any 

 pictures that the Art-Union will distribute this year, among all those 

 that will be scattered from Maine to Missouri. 



" An industrious pair, some twenty or thirty years ago, commenced 

 the world with strong hands, stout hearts, robust health, and steady 

 habits. By the blessing of Heaven their industry has been rewarded 

 with plenty, and their labors have been crowned with success. The 

 dense forest has given place to stately orchards of fruits, and fertile 

 fields, and waving meadows, and verdant pastures, covered with eviden- 

 ces of worldly prosperity. The log cabin is gone, and in its stead a fair 



