The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1859-12-28
Natnre,s onen rolume lies.
WHAT WILL you DO WITH YOUR
- SONS? 49,

1--WE find in the 4merieqz journal Of Eau-
cation some thoughts in relation to the agri-
cultural profession, to which we invite the
earnest attention Of our readers:
HA aFARm LIFE A SCHOOL OF True MAN
HeoD.-The men who have left their mark up
on the ages in which they have lived, have
done a great and noble work for the race; have
been, with few exceptions, men of noble physi-
cal mould. The foundation eff their greatness
and of their fame was laid in the patient train
ing of their physical powers Such a man
was Washington, and most of the worthiest
who were associated with him in the struggle
for our liberties. Such we're Clay and Web
ster, and many Of their contemporaries in our
national Senate. Their early days were spent
upon the farm, and the thoughts of their de-
clining years were given to the improvement,
and the cultivation, and the establishment OF
their respective homesteads. Ashland and
Mar hfeld will long be scenes of pilgrimage to
the husbsndman as well as the patriot.
aThe whole tendency of farm life is to de-
velope the body healthfuily and symmetrically.
The child is not pent up in the narrow back
yard of a city dwelling, nor turned into the
thronged and filthy streets to pursue his sports.
His eyes open first upon green field and fra
grant 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 playfainess which
performs so important an Office in our early
training.
$50 this leads us to speak of the influence
Of farm life upon the home virtues. No oc-
cupation can be more favorable to the ~cultiva-
ton of those qualities which are the charm of
the domestic circle. The farmer is much more
at home than is possible with any other men.
Hoy many are there in our cities who only see
their families at evening, or on Sunday
They live for their business, and this, from its
location, takes them from home early and late.
How many, from the same cause, forsake
housekeeping and huddle into boarding houses
xand hotels, where the charm and beauty of the
sfamiiy, as God instituted it, is entirely lost ;
sand children fall under a thousand unfriendly
influences that would never touch them at
heneiLWithe the best arrangements wealth
could command in the city, it is well nigh i'm
possible to keep children under the influence of
their parents, so that they shall have a distinct
family character, and bear the moral, as they
do the physical image of their progenitors-
Parental influence is dissipated amid the va
ried social influences to which they are sub
jectea from their earliest days. Then what
p~erplexities harrass the man of business in
the eitg-his capital often invested in profit
less enterprises, exposed to the depredations of
dishonest men, betrayed, cheated, and ruined
by knaEes and bankrupts. From the very
character of his business he has to trust far
more of his ayailabl. means to the integrity
of his fellows than thu cultivator- His debts
are often scattered over a wide extent of ter
5ritefy, and col e.tfo IS are not only expensive,
> but exceedingly uncertain. But his CONNER
,.iciaI credit depends upon this uncertainty, and
! he is often compelled to fall back upon moth
ing, a ruined man.
HNinety-6ye failures in a hundred, among
most business men in the city, tell a srd tale
of the perplexity and sorrow, the corroding
cares and anguish of mercantile life. How
can a father, goaded with these anxieties, from
the beginning tosthe end of the year, do jus
tice to his children, even if his business allow
ed him to be with them a part of the time?-l
He is not in a frame of mind. to superintend
thsir education and to perform a fathers Office.
farm preserves the family IN its integ-
rity. The home has init that charming word,
and that more charming thing. the freside,
around7whieli parents and children gather, and
where iii bright and cheerful blaze upon the
hearth IS but q true type Of the flame OF love
that glows in every heart The parents have
been d " together, not by sordid motives of
wealth. or the ambitious desire of social dis
play, but by tie personal qualities SEEM in each
other. The glory of the freside to the hus-
band is that the wife is there and to the wife
that he is there who is head of the woman,
and the band is that home circle. Here they
gather, at morn ng and evening, and at noon.
Their board is almost always surrounded with
tbs, same circle, and here they spend the long
winter evenings together
q iSonGHutM.-A correspondent from S Iring-
field. Cedar County, Iowa, writes tina about u
600 gallons of syrrp have been made in that
toHp. from the Sorghum cane during the past