Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1864-04-22
Labor and the Learned rrofcssions.
Once-a- Week.

In the Maine Legislature the other day, a
clergyman member made speech in favor of
granting a township of land TO some sectarian
seminary, and to illustrate the benefits of such
grant, he told the story of pooryoung man who
had become preacher,-whereas without the
advantages of the Seminary, he would have
been only farmer. Mr.. Small of Leyden,
replied II am farmer, and am not ashamed
to be one but will not vote the means to ele-
waite men to look down on me-" And the sting
ing sarcaim Of his single remark, killed the bill.
This very credible story affords a good illustra-
ton of the habit of society TO disparage the
most honorable pursuits in life, unless they are
in some way connected with scholastic or uni
versity parchments. The ambition of the child
is too often stimulated at home and at school,
for some employment in life which will remove
him from the necessity of honest manual toll,
and the thought OF being minister, lawyer a
doctor, or even clerk, clad in superfne broad
doth, tinges all his visions Of happiness in the
future.
Foolish parents with manageable daughters,
fairly doat on the spruce young man in specta
Giles, who is about to enter one Of the learned
professions and the young ladies in the village
church set their caps to catch the college grad
uatc, who can barely earn his salt (; because to
their short sighted Visions the way to honor
and station. and influence and power is open 10
him, rather than the man who works With his
hands.
At our school examinations, nothing is more
common than for the prm looking committee
man, who is almost always taken for the reason
that he is doctor, a lawyer, or preacher, (and
has been to college,) without the slightest ret
erence to his qualifications as to common sense,
never fails to tell the youngsters how some
great man who was once boy like them be-
/ -.
statesman or preacher, and to clap the climax
of his faith il what he says, expresses the be-
lief that some future President Of the United
States may be taken from the first class in
Grammer and that all the members of the
fourth class in Arithmetic may one day become
Representatives to Congress Very seldom on
such occasions is anything said to the children
of farmers, shoemnkers, and blacksmiths, to re-
mind them that the highest attributes of man
hood are not incompatible with the lowliest la
Dor that it is not the employment which de-
grades or eevates the man. bnt really tie man
who enobles and dignifes the employment
that it is not the work itself which the indiy-
dual performs, but tie quality OF the work that
debases or enobles him who performs it.
1t is time to abandon all such false systems
oflrainngi and working men especially should
rebuke them wherever they appear as did the
farmer legislator of Maine the pert preacher.
who would so magnify his office as to speak of
his otsss as something better than the common
clay of which farmers and mechanics and labor
ers are made.
He would have been only farmer Poor
foolish man, to suppose that any vocation in
life could elevate any man above that of him
whose useful labor, cooperating with his Ma.
ker, clothes and feeds tie world, even the very
drones and butterflies who fit about the edges
of society and sheer at better men than them
selves. In all the ages which have passed.
ei;Acr 10y speculation or action industry has
wrought all the triumphs of which civilization
makes It's boast. lie who first caugh; the wild
horse OF the deverl and tanned him to the guild
9nce of humun will who first yokcd tho slur-
dy OK to farm wagon or aplough, who opened
the first mine, smelted the first bushel of iron
ore macerated the stalks of the humble fax
plant in water and spun linen from the fbers
that remained, whenever and wherever he lived,
was worlher to stand before princes and to en-.
JOY the gratitude and love of mankind, than
any OF those whom the false estimates of the
world hold up as the models for the Young am
hitlon to study and emulate. p ouman.