St. Charles City Republican intelligencer. [volume] (St. Charles City [Charles City], Iowa) 1857-1861, 1859-01-27
agricultural.
THE M CALLING.

HutCNCl ~" NlC"o VI 1NStiSuiIult,
as a calling, are afloat in the commu-
nifty, arise generally either from attri-
buting to it unpleasant features, which
do not necessarily belong to it, or
from stripping it of pleasant features,
which are its peculiar rights.
| have heard blacksmitlIs swear
when the iron burnt, and shoemakcrs
when the end broke; | have seen car
penters drunk whcp they ought to
have been sober, and manufacturers
terribly impatient when a wheel got
out of gear but | never supposed
that Impotence and intemperance and
profanity were necessarily connected
with those employments. So | have
seen the farmer, who was dull, dronish,
ignorant-didn't know enough to want
to know more-had no good taste
about his buildings, fences, and
grounds-would live behind a door
yard fence, not fit for the further end
of a sheep pasturc-cared little If his
wife and daughters had not a new
dress once in three years-telt it to
be a misfortune if his children showed
a desire to learn more than he had,
and liked old fashions better than
new.
But il never occurred to me that
the fault was in the mans business.
| thought it was in himself. l think
that if he had been a minister ne
would have preached his grandfather's
If he had been a lawyer
and had got a suit into court, | can
hardly suppose he would ever have
got it out again. And if he had been
a doctor, | do not know what would
have become of the patients. If he
had been a manufacturer he would not
have made anything but blunders,
and perhaps would not have had life
enough to make them. l should as
soon think of blaming the doctrines of
the Redeemer, because very wicked
men profess them, as to think of blam-
ing agriculture because q few such
men call themselves farmers. l verify
believe that agriculture, as a calling,
has suffered more from the %delinquen-
cies of a few men, who never ought
to have had more land than enough to
be buried on, than the Church has by
all the rascality that has ever crawled
into it. We are apt to judge indis-
criminately. When we pass the premi-
ses of Il thriftless, slatternly, tastcless
farmer-it must be confessed that
there are such-wc ought not to blame
the calling, but to shake off the dust,
as against a man who disgraces a pro-
fession which he ought to honor.
The truth is, agriculture, stript of
its false attachments, such as spring
from unworthy members of the pro-
tcssion, and others which have come
down from a by-gone age, and espcci-
ally if clothed in its own rights, in
those rural tastes ard ~eleganccs, which
appropriately belong to it, is a noble
calling. | do not ~depreciate other
professions. They are all well, if well
followed. Agriculture, manufactures,
and commerce must go together. Ag-
riculturs Is the first and most impor-
tant-is the foundation of the whole
but it cannot thrive without the others.
1t must stand side by side with man
ufactures and commerce, with theolo.
gy, law and medicine, with the i'll
struction Of youth and with the me-
chanic arts. | do not wish that all
should be farmers. That would be
going back to the old order of things,
LII which there would be none to buy
the farmers produce, the very condi-
tiou in which agriculture in our coun-
try languished more than a hundred
years, and became disrcputable, so far
as so important a calling ever can
become ~disrcpntable. / do not wish
that all farmers son even should be
farmers. The farm, of all places, is
the very place to raise men for all pro-
~fcssions.
BY a law Of society, as incxorable
as it is il~attering 10 this profession.
farmers are destined to be the fathers,
and farmers wives to be the mothers
OF nearly all the future doctors, law
yers, clergymen, teachers, statesmen,
Judges, governors, presidents, militia
ry commanders, energetic manufacture
ers, and wealthy merchants. You
cannot grow men fit for those high
places, except on the farm. All other
professions have to he recruited from
this. If they were not SO recruited
they would run out. They cannot
pe~rpetuate themselves. Where would
be our merchant princes a few years
hence if there Were no boys growing
up in habits of industry, economy, and
indomitablc energy in the farmhouse.
There must be a division of labor {;
some must work in the Senate, some
in the pulpit, some in the college,
academy and school, some in the fac
tory, others in the counting-room, and
many on the farm. 1t would be sell
fish if the farmer should insist upon
all his sons following his profession.
Had Daniel Webster's father acted on
this principle we should have had no
Daniel Webster in the Senate !; and
had Washington's mother acted thus
we should have had no Washington to
be first in war and first in peace and
first in the hearts of his countrymen.
The farm must grow the cattle and the
sheep, and, with few exceptions, the
men for high places.
All professions, that meet the wants
of a growing civilization and a pure
christianity, should be regarded as in
.ustrial professions. The minister,
the doctor, the teacher, ought to be,
and they generally are, as Industrious
as the wheat-grower, the cotton-spin-
ner, and the p%ln-maker. How many
and tailors are more in
dustrious than were Daniel Webster,
Henry Clay and John G. Calhoun, or
than are thousands who now live and
are imitators of those great men?
None perhaps are better supplying
the real waits of the present and of "A
coming age. know Of no profession
IN this country, except that of the
loafer, which is not Industrial. All
are well !; and he is the best citizen
who magnihes his office, whether it
be 10 preach righteousness, to inter
pref law, to heal sickness, to enlight-
80, 80, =, s.i,. motion, -, ...l,zI