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WISCONSIN State Agricultural Society. 
with no chance to learn anything or do anything but hard work; 
you say, “ it is nothing but hurry from spring time till harvest, and 
then the night and morning chores are more than all the rest, and 
it is no use to try to be anybody and live on a farm.” This is a 
dreary outlook for an aspiring boy; but the half has not been told, 
and fortunately the other half is the sunny side. These difficulties 
which seem to you now a barrier to all improvement, if you do 
but overcome them, will be the very stepping stones to your great¬ 
ness. 
These are the very things which will make you patient, strong 
and self-reliant, and this lesson of self-reliance you must learn, 
sooner or later; if you learn it in youth, you may begin life a man, 
► 
in mind as well as stature; if you learn it later, it is at a fearful 
cost; if not at all, you will go ashore a wreck. 
The things you so much wish for may not be the best for you. 
It is pleasant to be shielded from care, to be furnished with money, 
to be watched by friends; but this is as though in your small gar¬ 
den, you should plant the seeds in spring time and water and care 
for them, and then shade the young plants from the sunshine and 
protect them from the winds, and keep them in luxuriant growth 
till the long days of summer, then remove the protection and with¬ 
hold your care, and then expect to find blossoms and fruit for your 
reward in the autumn. 
You feel that you have no time for improvement in your studies, 
but you have the same twenty-four hours in each day that is given to 
every mortal; no one has more than that; if time is used rightly, 
and the work of one hour or day is not put over till another, there 
will be a portion of time for reading, study and recreation, even in 
your farm life. You have the broadest opportunity for physical 
culture; good health is the very foundation of a useful life; many 
a young student has found an early grave from exclusive study, 
and the want of this same manual labor which you now deplore. 
You may not make as rapid progress in your studies as you wish, 
but you must remember that the practical knowledge of the labors 
of life is what you must first learn; that which you find in books is 
excellent, and a portion of it must go along with the practical till 
this is attained; then go, if you wish, and drink long and deep from 
the fountains of knowledge. 
The circumstances of your parents will have much control over 
