ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 147 



Our parents were firm believers in the necessity of 

 work and taught it to the children along with the ten 

 commandments and the Westminster catechism. If it 

 was not a panacea for all the ills pertaining to human 

 life, it was a balm for the most of them ; what was 

 more, they tried to impress upon our minds something 

 of the dignity of labor. We were taught early that 

 there is no honest labor of our hands that will detract 

 one iota from manhood and womanhood, but, on the 

 other hand, add to it. Like most children, we felt the 

 burden very heavy at times and no doubt did the usual 

 complaining, but in the years of maturity there comes 

 often a grateful acknowledgment of this early training. 



If our boys and girls on the farm are well fed and 

 well clothed, there is little danger of overwork. 



We hear much about the dignity of labor, but more 

 must be said and more taught. The children must 

 hear it at home and in the schools ; in our day of 

 "strikes" and combinations too much cannot be said 

 about honest labor. It is said it is not the man 

 who works that leads the "strike"; it is the man 

 who wants money without earning it. I know 

 on our farms it is not the man who works who does 

 the mischievous grumbling ; it is the man who wants 

 a living without work; it is the same everywhere. 

 Well for the boys and girls if they learn well the lesson 

 of work. 



Well time passed on, these were school years and a 

 few terms of teaching district school, when one day 

 the mother proposed to her daughters to turn over her 

 share of the profits of the dairy, provided they did the 

 work. All the father, who took special pride in his 

 herd, asked was to have just as good calves raised as 

 those fed directly from the mother on the mother's 



