Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1857-10-08
Farm Life a School of true Manhood.

The men who have left their marks upon
the ages in which they have lived, have done
great and noble work for the race, have been
with few exceptions, men of noble physical
mould. The foundation of Undergraduates and
of their fame was laid in the patient training
OF their physical powers Such man was
Washington and most of the worthless who
were associated with him in the struggle for
our liberties Such was Clay and Webster
and many of their contemporaries in our ma
lional Senate. Their early days were spent
upon farm, and the thoughts of their decln-
ing years were given to the Improvement and
the cultivation, and the establishment of their
respective homesteads. Ashland and Marsh
held will long be scenes of pilgrimage to the
husband as we'll as the patriot.
The whole tendency of farm life is to develop
the body healthfully and Systematically. The
child is not pent up in the narrow back yard
of city dwelling, nor turned into the throng-
ed and filthy street to pursue his sports. His
eyes open first upon green fields and fragrant
meadows, and his first football out of doors is
upon the matted grass beneath the shadowy
trees of his rural home He drinks in health
from every breeze, and all the scenes around
him call forth that playfulness which performs
And this leads us to- speak of the influence
of farm life upon the home virtues. No oc-
cupation can be more favorable to the cutiya-
tion of those qualities which are the charm of
the domestic circle. The farmer is mnch more
at home than is possible with any other men.
How many there are in onr cities, who can on
ly see their families at evening, OF On the Sab
bath. They live for their business, and this
from its location takes them from home early
and late. How many from this same cause,
forsake housekeeping and huddle into boarding
houses and hotels, where the charm and beau
ty of the family, as God instituted it, are en-
trely lost, and children fall under Thousand
unfriendly influences that would never reach
them at home. With the best arrangements
wealth can command in the city, it is well
nigh impossible to keep children under the in
fuence of their parents so that they shall have
q distinct family character, end bear the NOR
al, as they do the physical image of their pro-
gentors. Parental influence is dSspated
amid the varied social influences to which
they are subjected from their earliest days
Then what pcrplexities harrass the man of bu-
siness in the city-his capital often invested
in proftlesS enterprise, exposed to the degra-
dations of dishonest men, betrayed, cheated,
and ruined by knaves and bankrupts. From
the very character of his business, he has to
trust far more of his available means to the in
tegrity of his fellows than the cultivator-I
His debts are often scattered over a wide eX
tent of territory, and collections are not only
expensive, but exceedingly uncertain. But his
commercial credit depends upon this uncertain
ty, and he is often compelled to fall back upon
nothing, a ruined man.
Ninety-fve failures in q hundred, among
most business men in the city, tell sad tale
of the perplexity and sorrow, the corroding
cares and anguish, of mercantile life. How
can father, goaded with these anxeties, from
the beginning to the end of the year, do justice
to his children, even if the business allowed
him to be with them part of the time He
is not in frame of mind to supcrintend their
education and to perform fathers office.
The farm preserves the family in its intcg-
rity. The nome has in it that charming word
and that before charming thing, the freside
around which parents and children gather, and
where the bright and cheerful blaze upon the
hearth is but true type of the fame of love
that gows in every heart. The parents have
been drawn together, not by the sordid motives
of wealth, or the ambitions desire of social dis
play, but for the personal qualities seen in eacn
other The glory of the 6resde to the hus-
band is that the wife is there and to the
wife that he is there who is the head of the
woman, and the band in that home circle
Here they gather at morning and evening,
and at noon. Their board is almost always
surrounded with the same circle, and here
they spend the long winter evenings together.
From The American Journal of Education.