94 THE FARMER H RELATIONSHIPS, 



those who believe that for the boy who expects to make his 

 own way by his own work, the quicker he gets to learning 

 what he will directly make use of, the better. So, after leav- 

 ing the common school, the special agricultural or trade school 

 seems to me the most desirable. 



Aside from the common school the best education which 

 farmers' children can have is good books. Of these, good 

 biographies of successful men are undoubtedly the best. They 

 supply the consecutive "story" which the young mind craves, 

 and incidentally convey useful information. The daily paper 

 in the farmer's home is a nuisance. Nine-tenths of what it 

 contains is of no value to anybody, and a great part of it is 

 positively injurious. Few young people take kindly to books 

 of a purely instructive character, but those who do should be 

 supplied with them. If there are signs of an especial bent to- 

 wards any useful occupation, it should be encouraged, whether 

 in boys or girls. The city youths have a great advantage over 

 those of the country in the great libraries to which they have 

 access. This deficiency of country life it is the duty of the 

 farmer to supply to the best of his ability. 



In short, the duty of the father as a farmer seems to me to 

 be to get out of his children's heads the notion that city life 

 is in any way easier than country life; to train them to habits of 

 w^ork and responsibility not beyond their strength and their 

 years; and to the best of his ability to supply them with the 

 means of getting useful information. When this is done, if 

 there is anything in them of value it will develop itself. If 

 there is not, that is the end of it. The father has done his 

 duty. 



The farmers' employees will be mostly young men. 

 Toward them his duty is to make their lives such as he would 

 be willing that his own son should live. The old custom of 

 farmers' sons " hiring out" to neighboring farmers seems to be 

 gradually dying out. It was a good custom, and yet nothing 

 that I can say is likely to revive it. Farmers' sons seem 

 inclined to drift off to work among strangers and to spend what 

 they earn in hunting for new jobs. In the end they tend to 

 degenerate into the irresponsible and transient laboring class 



