The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 1850-1873, 1869-03-12
Why 1 Want the Boys to Learn Farm.
ing.

EVERY pursuit or calling that ministers
to the sustenance, comfort or enliehten-
ment of mankind Is honorable and huda-
BILE. That Is q narrow and essentially
false conception which regards the farmer
as more benefactor than q beneficiary,
and stigmatizes as drones and cormorants
all who do not directly contribute to the
production and increase of material
wealth The upright, able LAWYER, the
studious, skillful physicisn, the pious, low
ing clergyman, are workingmen, as truly
and quite as nobly ss though they were
wood-choppers or bricklayers. He who,
BY whatever means, helps TO diminish the
fearful aggregate Of ignorance, sin and
suffering in the world, and diffuse instead
kt owledge, virtue and happinesa Ia
worthy Of all honor, and far from me be
the " ish to discourage and degrade him.
And yet hold 1t the duty Of every father
TO look well to the physical and industrial
training OF his sons and daughters-to see
that each of them is early Injured to some
form OF manual labor, and thoroughly
trained to efficiency in some pursuit which
ministers directly to the material or phys
ical needs Of mankind. My reasons for
this conviction are summed up as follows:
The demand for intellectual labor or its
products, and even for mercantile caps-
city, is exceedingly capricious In
season OF commercial prosperity, Q great
city affords employment to thousands as
clerks, book-keepers, teachers of music,
languages, etc, ETC., who will nearly all be
LETT high and dry by the ebb of the tide
War, pestilence, bad harvest, business
revulsion, throws them suddenly out OF
employment, and no merit or excellence
on their part can avert the catastrophe.
would have every one so armed and
equipped for the battle of life that if sud-
denly endorsed, he can fight on efficiently
and undismsyedly on foot.
The professions are fearfully over
crowded. A Western village is half
peopled by doctors, lawyers, and clergy
men, who have rushed in ahead of the ex-
pected flood of immigration. Like miners
IN the Sierra Nevada or Rocky Noun
tains, they have severally staked out their
claims, and are waiting for others to come
in and help develop and work them to
mutual profit. But "while the grass
grows, the steed starves." Whatever may
be their fortune ten or twenty years hence |
and events are constantly interposips
to blast their sapguine hopes-doctor, |
lawyer, minister, are often winning but |
meagre, precarious support for the pres
emit 81 cannot dig; to beg l am
is the plant which many would |
utter if they could afford to be frank and /
u ass end ssgs
lebt, who would gladly take refuge in pro-
iuctive industry, ifthey had been trained to
familiarity with pitchforks and plow-
handles. They would outgrow their pres
mt endorsements if it were not for the
lew doctors, lawyers and clergymen an
lually ground out to compete with them
or practice or parishes, and whose train
ng is as helplessly one-sided as their own.
would qualify the professional men who
hall henceforth be trained for broader
nd more assured usefulness than that of
heir elder brethren.
New York city swarms with hungry
eedy, shivering, covering, cringing lei
Nv mortals, all in eager, imploriDg, hope.
,ss quest of something to do" To the
eproach of what passes for education, J
lust say that majority of these have had
money spent in schooling
len for lives Of usefulness. They are
ualifed Il presuine) to keep books or
opy manuscripts, or teach languages, or
ct as governesses, or follow some other
t the frightfully over stocked vacations !
ut when I say to one of them, "The !
'ork you seek is positively not to be had,
nee ten want to do it where one wants it
one; you must strike off into the broad, |
ee country, and ask farmer after farmer I
give you work till you find it, +" the gen
al response, 81 know nothing of farm (
q" strikes on my ear like knell Even |
seasons when the farmers were intense I
hurried by their summer harvest, and q
ady to pay largely for any help that was '
It hindrance, have known our city to q
thronged with weary, sad petitioners '
I something to do" flour current ed i
alton were not plumber or fraud, .
is could not he.-Hordce Greeley, tn e