Bedford inquirer. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1857-1884, 1869-04-30

new doctors, lawyers, and clergymen an
nually ground out to compete with them for
practice or parishes, and whose training Is
as helplessly ono-sided as their own. | would
qualify the professional men who shall
hencefofth be trained FOR broader and
more assured usefulness than that Of their
cider brethren.
5. New York city swarms with hungry,
needy, shivering, covering, criuging, fellow
mortals, all in eager, imploring, hopeless
quest of something to do. TO the re
proach Of what passes for education, | must
say that majority Of these have had CON
siderable money spent in schooling them for
lives of usefulness They are qualified, l
presume, to keep books or copy manuscripts
or teach languages, or act as governesses,
or follow some other Of the frighttully over
stocked vacations. But when | say to enc
Of them. The work you seek is positively
not to be had, since ten wang to do it where
one wants il done; you must stIise off into
the broad, free country, and ask farmer after
farmer to give you work till you find it, y
the general response, Il know nothing Of
farming strikes on my ear like knell.
Even al seasons when the farmers were IN
tensely hurried by the summer harvest, and
ready to pay largely for any help that was
not hindrance, ! have known our city TO be
thronged with Weary. sad petitioners fC
something to Dc If our current educa-
ton we're not plumber or fraud, this
could not be-
[ live when can in the country, though
most of my sleeping and nearly all my wa
king hours are given to work which calls me
to the city My neighbors are mainly far
mers, generally in fair circumstances, whose
children are fairly educated, or may be il
they will. Iregret to say majority of them
prefer not to follow their fathers vocation,
but want to live by trade, or By Office, Or
something else than farming. And the rea-
son, to my mind, is clear: their education
and their whole intellectual culture lead
away from the farm. Their school books
/ contain nothing calculated to make them
love agriculture or qualify them to excel in
it; their freside reading is not of chemistry,
geology, and the related sciences, but OF
knights and faiIies, troubadours and tourna-
ment@; in short, all things calculated to make
them detest farming as coarse, plodding,
hum drum pursuit, fit only for inveterate
ounces and illiteratc Doors. | protest
against this as false, misleading, pornicious,
and demand an education and a literature
which shall win our farmers sons to prize
and honor the calling OF their fathers.
a political economist has observed that
labor, unless used at the moment of produc-
ton, is lost forever, In most vocations il
is impossible to produce beyond the day S
needs The doctor can cnly cure diseases
as they manifest themselves; the best lawyer
cannot anticipate next years legal business;
the carpenter and mason cannot build houses
except as they are wanted. The farmer,
on the contrary, may grow corn or cattle,
fax wool, or cotton in excess of the current
demand, and store it against the time Of
need Better still he may drain, and sub
SOIL and fertilize; may plant trees, and
graft, and prune, so as to double his product
in the future BY judicious expenditure OF
/ effort in the present. If hundred thou
sand additional lawyers and doctors were let
loose upon the community, lido not feel
/ sure That the next result would be more JUS
tice or less disease and death, while am
2 tF@ tI,E I'LL 4 !
not be increased thereby; but a hundred
thousand enlightened, efficient farmers,
added to those We already have, could hardly
fail to add one hundred millions per annum
to the property which shall be the heritage
of our children
My Countrymen, let US each do his best
to increase the proportion of useful wor-
kers to pcstilent idleIs in the community.
Nay, more; let US try to increase the pro-
portion Of producers to exchangers or dis
tributors OF wealth Fences, and padlocks,
and policemen, and revenue officers may
be necessities of our present condition.
presume them to be so; but we might have
ourcountry so well fenced, and padlocked.
and policed, that we should all starve tc
death There is no shadow of danger that
too few will seek to live by law, physic,
trade, &c. while there is great danger that
trade and the professions will be over
crowded, TO the neglect and detriment Of
productive industry Let us face the foe
that menaces our position, and defeat him
if we can.-Horace Greeley, IN Hearth ana
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