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226 



THE ILLIiSrOIS F_A-R]MER. 



real -worth. The political arena, the 

 priesthood, and the strifes of war, offer- 

 ed brighter glories and more dazzling 

 rewards than the quiet and honest labors 

 of husbandry. The popular sentiment 

 was everywhere in favor of the prizes of 

 ambition, which the fancied greatness of 

 official power and warlike distinction 

 could confer. To the call of the con- 

 queror thousands readily gave heed, be- 

 cause they were lured by the prospect of 

 an easy and glorious life at the expense 

 of the victor's spoils. The spoils of war 

 might make the successful soldier weal- 

 thy all at once, and then, as he fancied, 

 he would have no further trouble, and 

 would be great. In comparison with 

 such a prospect, his tranquil and steady 

 pursuits at home dwindled into nothing. 



Mankind, at an early date, gave evi- 

 dence of eager readiness to live by plun- 

 dering their fellow men. This propen- 

 sity is singularly exhibited in the char- 

 acter of all inferior grades of civiliza- 

 tion. Not only the Indians of America, 

 but the rude tribes of every continent, 

 despise the labors of .regular industi-y, 

 while they are enthusiastic in their love 

 and practice of arms. War has tended 

 greatly to retard, depress and degrade 

 the character of agriculture. It has de- 

 luded the laborer from the plow, to wear 

 the gaudy decorations of Mars. It has 

 devastated the fields, and spread famine 

 over the world. It has prostrated the 

 arm of quiet and productive industry, by 

 the offer of higher glories on the theater 

 of military strife, and by stimulating the 

 hope of riches by means of sudden tri- 

 umph over unoffending neighbors. It 

 has deceived its votaries by assurances 

 of a short and easy road to Wealth, while 

 farms and fields and flocks were left to 

 wasting and neglect. 



Nor has war been the only means of 

 depressing the ancient and honorable 

 employments of the farmer. Capital 

 has been a powerful antagonist of this 

 great interest. The same ambitious 

 prowess which wrested the honest toiler 

 from thi plow, also managed to monopo- 

 size the gains of plundering war. The 

 soldiers that fought the battles of their 

 chieftain seldom obtained a just share of 

 the spoils. The highest honors have not 

 generally satisfied the aspiring leaders in 

 human strifes; they appropriated to 

 themselves exclusively, all the valuable 

 acquisitions, while the toiling and hardy 

 soldier was put off with eloquent speech- 

 es and flattering promises never to be 

 redeemed. The capital thus accumula- 

 ted by the crafty few has always been 

 the special favorite of the same few 

 in their legislative enactments. The 

 legislation of the world has always been 

 partial to capital and neglectful of la- 

 bor; hence but little favor has been shown 

 to the workers whose hardy toil cultiva- 



ted the fields and made them remunera- 

 tive to the owners. 



False views regarding education have 

 had no small share in retarding the pro- 

 gress of agriculture, and depressing the 

 rank of those laboring in it. Learnino; 

 has been regarded as useful, chiefly to 

 acquire shining distinctions of office and 

 power. In this view of letters and sci- 

 ence, no one was deemed worthy of a 

 polite education, unless he was destined 

 for the honors of official rank. For the 

 laborer that tilled the ground,knowledge 

 was held to be useless. As the only 

 service required of him was that of the 

 body, of course it Was a matter of no 

 concern whether he possessed a mind. 

 The more brute-like he could be rendered 

 in activity, strength and endurance of 

 body, the more valuable would he be to 

 his employer. If a laborer, he could 

 perform more service ; if a soldier, he 

 would escape death by fatigue and want, 

 and be most likely to last until felled by 

 the weapon of a foe. I tell you friends, 

 that to make beasts of burden, pack 

 horses and draught horses of the million 

 masses of mankind, was the procedure of 

 the ancients, and in most countries of 

 Europe and Asia, the same brutalizing 

 inhumanity still prevails. 



Now, I do not pretend to affirm that 

 every person should be equally educated, 

 for this is impossible; nor, that all should 

 aspire to be philosophers, poets, orators, 

 statesmen, physicians and divines. Not 

 so ; because there must be^men to labor 

 with the hoe ; the spade and the plow, 

 and besides so long as men think the 

 rank of eminent learning more praise- 

 worthy than eminent skill in the use of 

 the hoe and the plow, just so long will 

 valuable labor and the laborer be de- 

 pressed. The odious distinctions of caste 

 by which five hundred out of every five 

 hundred and one are doomed to inferior- 

 ity of rank, can never be consistent with 

 the rational equality with which all men 

 are regarded in the eyes of God. But 

 the one most effectual remedy for the 

 unfounded disparities now exist- 

 ing, is Education. For this purpose 

 must the rural population be educated. 

 In this country, where the access to 

 earning is equally open to all, without 

 distinction of rank, I ought rather to 

 say the rural and agricultural laborers 

 ought to regulate themselves. Books, 

 periodicals, schools, churches, literary 

 associations abound among us, and open 

 their graceful portals in persuasive invi- 

 tation to us all. The son or daughter 

 of the laboring farmer may open the 

 same books, enter the same schools and 

 colleges, and sit side by side in the same 

 lecture room, and be instructed by the 

 same teacher, and be rewarded by the 

 same literary distinctions, with the sons 

 and daughters of statesmen, generals. 



philosophers, presidents, governors and 

 heroes. 



If in this country, the farming commu- 

 nity are not properly educated and ele- 

 vated in society, it is chiefly their own 

 fault. 



But in what shall they be instructed ? 

 If they intend to continue at the toils of 

 their honorable calling, they need not 

 attempt to ramble over the whole cyclo- 

 pedia of knowledge. They need not be 

 erudite philologists, surely, nor profound 

 mathematicians, nor richly stored with 

 the systems of theologic lore. But cer- 

 tainly they ought to be good arithmeti- 

 cians, well practised in the ordinary 

 rules of book-keeping, thoroughly versed 

 in the well-established facts of chemis- 

 try, physiology, botany, geology and 

 mineralogy; and they ought to possess a 

 good acquaintance with the history, po- 

 litical organization, and the national 

 character of the American people. These 

 things certainly, they ought to know, 

 though there is nothing in the whole 

 round of learning to which the rural 

 community ought not to have ready ac- 

 cess, in case they should think proper to 

 press their inquiries still farther. 



But, my friends, in referring to the 

 causes by which the cultivators of the 

 soil have been depressed, I should not 

 be true to the subject and the occasion, 

 if I should make no allusion to slavery, 

 as one of the most degrading to labor of 

 every kind. To the injurious influences 

 of war, reference has already been made, 

 but not only in the manner already indi- 

 cated did war debase agriculture, but it 

 it carried the work of debasement still 

 farther by becoming an instrument for 

 the introduction and establishment of 

 slavery. 



The captives taken in battle, from 

 time immemorial, have been reduced to 

 servitude, and wars have been the fruit- 

 ful source of slavery. Slavery, in its 

 turn, has degraded human toil. Work 

 has been loaded upon the captured slave. 

 The condition of the slave has always 

 been that of inferiority and degradation; 

 and for this reason, the work to which 

 his master dooms him is also a degrada- 

 tion. 



Slavery prevailed among the Israel- 

 ites long anterior time of Moses. The 

 Hebrew patriarchs were slaveholders, 

 and the condition of bondmen, was a 

 prominent feature in all the social orga- 

 nization of the ancients, from a very 

 remote antiquity. 



In the time of Joseph's administration 

 in Egypt, the whole laboring population 

 of that country was brought under a 

 species subjection similar to that which 

 now prevails in despotic Russia, and 

 some other nations of modern times. 

 When the famine afflicted them, the 

 people parted with their money, their 

 cattle, their lands and themselves, fo 



