THE FARMER AND HIS HOME. 
121 
in the country—though that life is what they need to restore 
their moral and bodily health—both ruined by the dissipation 
of cities ; and yet goes on continually this desertion from the 
roofs of the farmers of your best educated and brightest sons, 
the most polished and refined of your daughters. For all this 
there must be a cause. Bear with me while 1 try to explain 
what the cause is, and how it may be removed. I believe the 
trouble to be not that you educate your children too much at 
school, but too little at home. Not that you make too much of 
them, but you make too little of yourselves. 
Man is a social animal—he enjoys the society of his fellows 
—and not only does he enjoy it, but it is necessary to any con¬ 
siderable development of the higher qualities of his nature. If, 
when your children go from home, they get glimpses of higher 
social enjoyments, then, as a matter of course, they sigh for 
the new life—they wish to leave the old home. 
Now there is no reason in this country why the farmer 
should be a boor. There is small reason in that talk about the 
honest and hard fisted yeomanry, even. The farmers here can 
be, and ought to be, and must be, gentlemen—educated and in¬ 
telligent gentlemen—there is no reason why they should be 
anything else ; there is no reason why they should not be gen¬ 
tlemen in every sense of the word, unless some shall take it to 
imply idle men. But to become this in the highest sense, im¬ 
plies exertion and improvement, socially and intellectually. 
Many of us have, perhaps, received a very poor and defective 
education, we have had no opportunities for enjoying good so¬ 
ciety. What of it? Shall we stop short and make no improve¬ 
ment ourselves, and give our children an education that shall 
hopelessly separate them from us ? Not at all, we must go on 
and improve ; we must maize good society for ourselves. Man, 
as I said before, is a social being, he does not improve by soli¬ 
tude, but association and attrition with his fellows. I care not 
how hard and rough the rock is—let the pieces be rubbed to¬ 
gether, and the corners are soon worn off, the rough edges soon 
become smooth and polished. Charity, it is said, begins at 
home—there, must education and improvement begin. 
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