The Union flag. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1865-187?, 1869-03-12
agricultural.
SENSIBLE SUGGESTIONS.
Why ROys Should Learn Farming.
Nv HonAoE aaEnLEY.

Nfcf1 PWtNAlN w NNHt'% NlN1 Ns'"
iatera Il tho suStenanoe, comfort and
enlightenment Of mankind ia honor
able ana audaEle. That is i narrow
ana essentially false conception which
regards the farmer as more a beneiac.
tor than q beneficiary, and stigma,
iises az drones and cormorants ali
who do not directly contribute to the
production and increase Of material
wealth. The upright, able lawyer,
tho sludious, Hkilltul physician, tho
pious, loving clergyman, are working
men as truly and quite as nob'y as
though they were woodchOppers or
bricklayers. He who, by whatever
means, helps to diminish the fearful
aggregate of Ignorance, sin and suf-
f.ring in the world, and diffuse, in
stead, knowledge, virtue and happi-
nesa, is worthy of all honor, and far
from me the wish to discourage and
degrade him and yet ] hold it the
duty of every father to look well to
the physical and industrial training of
his sons and daughters-to SEQ that
each of thcm is early Injured to some
form of manual labor, and thorough
liz trained to efficiency in some pur-
auit which ministers directly TO the
material or physical needs of man
kind. Ny reasons for this conviction
are summed up Az follows:
l. The demand for intellectual Ia
Dor or its products, and even for mer-
camille capacity, is exceedingly capri
eious. In n season Of commercial
prosperity, u great city affords en-
plovmens TO thousands rs clerks,
book. keepers, teachers Of music, lam
guages, etc., etc, who will nearly all
he left high and dry by the ebb Of the
Tide, War, pestiience, q bad harvest,
a business revulsion, throws them
suddenly out of employment, and no
merit or excellence on their part can
avail the catastrophe. | would have
every one 80 armed and equipped for
the battle OF life that, if suddenly un-
horsed, he can fight on efficiency and
undismayed on foot.
.. The professions are fearfully
overcrowded. A Western village is
half peopled by doctors, lawyers and
clergymen, VINO have rushed in ahead
of tho expected food of immigration
Like miners in the Sierra Nevada or
Rocky Mountains, they have several
" staked out their claims, and are
waiting for others to come in and
help develope and work them to mu'
tpal profit. But +" while the grass
grows. the ateed starves" Whatever
NAV be their fortune twenty years
hence-and events are constantly in
~terposing 10 blast their h~opes-doc
tor, lawyer, minister, are often win
ming but meagre, praoarious support
for tho present. Al "a not dig, to
beg / am ashamed" is the plant
which many would utter If they
could afford to be frank and Outspok-
en-. Thousands suffer and stsgger on,
oppressed by want and ever lnoreas-
ing debt, who would gladly take re-
fugs in productive industry, if they
had been trained TO familiarity with
p~itchforkS aud plowhandles. They
would outgrow their present embar-
easements if it were not for the nel0
doctors, lawyers and clergymen an
nually ground out to complete with
them for practice or parishes, and
whose training is as helplessly one
sided as their own. / would qualify
the professional mon who shall hence
forth be trained Tor n broader and
more assured usefulness than that Of
their elder brethren.
3. New York city warns with
hungry, needy, shivering, covering,
bringing iellow-mortals, all in eager,
imploring, hopeless quest of some
thing to do" To the %reproach of
what passes for education, | mast say
that a majority Of these have bad
considerable money spent ia school
ing them for lives Of usefulness. They
are qualified I presume to keep
books or copy manuscripts or teach
languages or act as gOvernosses, or
follow some other of the frightfully
overstocksd vocations. But when l
say to one of them, The work you
30 K IS positively not to be bad since
ten want to do il where one wants il
done ! you must strike of into the
broad, free country, and ask farmer
after farmer TO give you work ill you
find IT," the general response, 81
know nothing of farming" strikes TO
my ear like a knell. Even at seasons
when the farmers were intensely hur-
risd by their summer harvest, and
ready to pay largely for any help that
was not hiRdrance, | have known our
city to DO thronged with weary. sad
petitioners for - something to DO" II
our current education were not a
Id - 80. III - l..