Nebraska advertiser. [volume] (Brownville, Nemaha County, N.T. [Neb.]) 1856-1882, 1860-06-28
AGRICULTURAL.
From the Country Gentleman.1
@WhY do Young Men Leave the
Farm 3"

EDs. Co. GExT.-Your correspondent
Coluniella answered the question when
be said 'They haze aspirations for ns0rt
IueTatiUs business Aos farming J" and be
as correctly explains ''the extraordinary
unanirnity with which literally educated
men quit manual labor" Such men are
fitted for and can command more lucrative
business than aOOrking in The field dag
a15er day as tbetkfitfy former does. =
/ cannot admit the correctness Of the
charge that farmers sons look upon farm
labor as humiliating, and desire 10 escape
from it to engage in some one Of the
trades, or professions, which he supposes
to be more honorable, and confer better
titles to responsibility.
The reason why any leave agriculture
to engage in the pursuits of professional,
mercantile or political life, is not, in my
judgement. on account Of any supposed
respectability which the latter has over
the former, but because they open avenues
10 the more speedy acquisition Of wealth,
which is the great Diana of American
worship. The farmer partakes. doubt
Hess, of that spirit of enterprise and ad-
venture which characterized his Norman
and Anglo-Saxon ancestors, and is not
always proof against the temptation to
engage in those speculations in which, if
successful, vast fortunes are suddenly ac-
cnmulated.
Some, however, leave the farm from
necesgity; Its moderate size and limited
productions being insufficient to emplythe
hands and supply the wants Of all who
are born upon it. In that case, the
parents give to that son who seems best
qualified by nature to succeed in the
learned professions the best education
they can afford, and then with fathers
blessing and a mothers prayers, he is sent
out to the world to procure substance
and home, and if possible to carve
name that shall be held in respect by his
fellow men, and ill the measure of
parental pride and expectation.
These are the reasons, and not farm
labor is looked upon with disgust, why
cadets and midshipnaF's warrants are
h r, situations ia government
ses ted legal ard medical d pleEnas
labl ard mercantile lersships &C
cepged by he sons Of farmers.
Nevertheless, the farmer is perhaps
not wholly insensible to the promptings
Of a lofty and honorable ambition which
finds appropriate theatres for its exercise
in the representative halls and senate
chambers Of the State and nation.
This is doubtless more fortunate than
otherwise, for those renovating and con-
servative elements that give purity,
stability and vigor to the institutions of
learning and religion, of law and medi-
cine, of trade and commerce, are mainly
drawn from the agricultural portion of
the people; and when the human tide
that rolls in from the farmhouse to
mingle with the streams Of professional,
commercial and political life shall cease,
these institutions will have passed their
eliminating point, and decay be written
upon the crumbling monuments of human
greatness.
"The tendency of increased education
10 produce an increase of manual labor"
is natural, and in accordance With the
upward instincts of humanity, for labor
performs lis lowest Office when it provides
the means Of sustaining physical life, and
only perfectly exhibits the wisdom of its
Great Ordainer, when it leads to the de-
velopment of that intellectual and mortal |
nature, which constitutes the real Of man. |
Labor, in and of itself, mere mindless |
toll, such as the horse and the OK perform, |
always has been, and always will be, con-
sidered degrading, and the ingenuity of |
man since his creation has been, and to
the end Of time will be, tasked 10 soar
above it, and to live without it.
L. CHASDStn BALI.
HoOsick Falls, m. Y.