Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1864-10-06


light upon the power of education to
elevate and refine people, we may elab-
crate our system of schools; we may |
spread knowledge broad cast over the
land but we should never forget that !
the best rules of New England farmers |
were laid down here by the sturdy yeo-
many whose strength civilized these |
hills, in whose hands the material pros |
perity of our state rested half a century |
ago; whose ample abodes still remain |
in our villages and along the roadsides |
whose social position was won by solid !
merit, who constituted that intelligent
rural population from whom the mer-
chants and lawyers and divines and
statesmen of our day have sprung, and
whose homes are still waiting for n re-
turn of that wealth and intelligence
which long ago deserted them. We OF
New England should never forget this,
In our busy and restless and ambitious
life, we have poured all our best powers
of mind and body into our towns and
villages, and exhausted them in the
counting room or the forum, or IN the
hard toll of the inventive arts. We have
forgotten our old rural homes-those
broad fields, those overshadowing trees,
that substantial New England dwelling,
whose very presence even now tells us
of the staunch and reliable virtues of
those who have long since gone TO their
rest.
We should know that the charm Of
lie is not in our cities and large towns.
Neither our moral, nor our religious, nor
our physical natures, can be developed
with that beauty Of proportion OF which
man is capable, so long as we prefer the
feveriSh excitement of the busy con-
course of men, to the healthy and placid
and ripening and ennobling influences
of a cultivated moral life. There are
charms in the unceasing current of life,
which flows through the forum and the
market place. There is fascination,
as Mr.. Choate once said to me, in the
newspaper and the postotlice," above
the music OF the sounding sea and the
silence of the lonely shore. But when
we remember the anuOyanceS which
meet us at every corner; the petty strites
of men, the struggles and distreSSes, the
efforts and disappointments, shall we
not sigh for the rural responsibility Of
! our fathers, and eXclaim with Cicero,
| "there at my Laurentium | hear nothing
| that repent to have heard, say nothing
| that | repent to have said; no hopes
| delude and no fears modest me. Wei
| come thou life of integrity and virtue
! 0 dalce oti1Ha, hoaCStamque &C poeHe oHRt
| hegotio pulclgius !" We must learn once
more to love the land to love it as our
fathers loved it, to love it as the people
, of old loved it, whose great men enjoyed
! their tayorite retreats, and listened,
many a returning spring, to the night
! ingaIeS that teuauted the dark ivy, and
! greeted the narCiSsuS, ancient cOrOnal OF
the mighty goddesSes, as it burst into
! bloom under the dews of heaven When
| from our New England cities, which
| have received their liie-bloOd from the
country, there flows back Il current of
! wealth and intelligence TO beuutity our
towns and cultivate our fields, we shall
make our land still more the fit abode
of a free and intelligent people.
And now one word in behalf of Agri-
cultural Societies as nurseries of this
| rural love and taste of which ! have
| spoken. Not alone ambition excited by
peaceful strife for supremacy on the
Fair grounds here, not alone the desire
to excel, awakened by some successful
competitor, not alone that useful knowl-
edge which may be gained by the Obser-
walton and discussion of occasions like
this, not all this alone constitutes the
benefit of your Exhibition There is
the exhilaration which your blood re-
ceives from associations where, Invested
of all care "iace answereth unto face. u
These cheerful assemblies, do they not
gid the way of youth and make the old
feel young again Do they not only en-
hance the value of our lands and crops
and tiocks and herds in our eyes, but dc
they not moreover give us renewed in
terest for the enjoyment Of those poses
sions Here then, let us have our an
nual moral sports and when the form
alist or ascetic charges upon the people
of New England growing mania for
the track and che trotter, let US point To
our billy pastures which produce the
hardest horses in the world, and then
ask him whether, amidst the cares and
tolls of farming life, after diligent study
of the more sober products OF our fields
and states, we may not take this other
gift Alright, and learn to develop, and
cherish, and enjoy and protect that ia
vorite animal which is intimately asso-
ciated with all our enjoyments and sor-
rows, and whose comfort in this world
depends on the respect which kind
hearted master knows how to entertain
for him. Let this then be our New Eng
land rural sport, if need be, properly
| conducted as feature o. our exhibit
| tons, and controlled by propriety, hon
esty and good judgment. But let us
| have our pleasures still, and not hope TO
| rise to superior moral excellence by chill
| ling the blood in our veins, and regard
ing the sunny side of life as overgrown
| with frivolities, beset by temptations,
and blackened by crime. In this way
| shall we love our calling the more. In
this way shall we educate ourselves
| into the bright and cheerful regions,
| > which belong to free rural population.
And in this way shall we learn how to
make such anniversaries as this more
useful, more influential, more instruct
i've, more agreeable and attractive.-
I yynt,l1 40 oh ntb ha+ lat