The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1874-10-27
Che 8utlaaa 9aily 6lube
TUESDAY, OCTOBER ~, 1874.
VERMONT, MOTHER OF MEN.
Address Before the Vermont Dairy
mems Association. by President N
II. Buckham, of the University of
VcrmOntu and state Agricultural
College, ut Montpelier, October FL,
1874.

A pleasant incident, recently occurring,
has revived and sent round the press the
famous reply of the Vermontcr, when
asked what they chiefly raised in Vermont
" AS the soil is rather hard, said he, "and
the climate rather cold we have taken to
raising men, 1t was thoroughly charac-
teristic Vermont speech, good enough to be
the state motto, and too good to be put into
bad Latin for the purpose. It's towering
boast but the charm of it is perfectly
true. Speaking to the Dairymen's Associa-
ton, and naturally disposed TO lay on the
butter thick, must yet make bold to say
that Vermonts most important products
are not butter and cheese. Speaking to
the representatives Of all the industries of
the state, and valuing them all as highly as
any man, assert that not wool or horses,
not marble or slate are our staple produce
tions,-but men and women. | will say
more than that, the main crop which we
are expected, and | might say are under
sort of contract to supply to the country is
a crop of men. Not more truly does the
Boston butter market look to st. Adams
and Richmond for supplies, and the Brigh-
ton market to our Vermont cattle-trains,
than do the professions and the great in
dustrial and mercantile enterprises of the
country depend on Vermont for men to
carry tkem forward. | have frequently
heard from those who sit at the focus OF
intelligence and catch the whispcrings that
come up from all parts of the land, that in
the present unsettllng of confidence in
public and private virtue, a kind of paren-
thetical reservation is always made in fa-
vor of Vermont except Vermont, of
course-shc is all right" that there is get
ting TO be a settled expectation OF stauncher
morality, sounder craftsmanship and more
thorough-going character in Vermont than
in any other state of the Union. can
imagine the senate of the United States, for
example, standing aghast, and the best men
in it almost ready to despair of the Repub-
| lie, if Vermont should cease to send thither
the kind of men she always has sent, men
among the foremost both for senatorial
ability and senatorial virtue. And thrice
happy is that state which. after its repre-
sentative have done the important work
which has been done in this chamber to-
day, can draw long breath and say to it.
self - Whichever of those men had been
selected. he would not have failed to keep
up the noble succession of the Phelpses,
the Collamers, the Foote's, whose senatorial
careers have been so honorable to the
state"
Let us accept the position which seems
to have been assigned to us by Providence
and accorded to us by public opinion. We
could not have a nobler one. Let the rich
err soils of the west supply the granares of
the world; let the workshop of more popu-
lous states outdo us in manufactures let
the great seaboard cities control commerce;
it shall content us to supply what has al
ways been and will always be the world s
| greatest need-men. "Vermont, the moth
err of men"-no state in the world bears
remembered, to bear it worthly, involves
more thought and exertion than would
suffice to make state rich and powerful.
If it is our mission to train great men and
good women for the worlds needs, then it
is our mission to study p rofoundly the
worlds true needs and how to meet them
Amid the rapid changes going on in all the
relations of life, how to appropriate every
real improvement and still to keep the es-
sential and unalterable conditions of we'll
being unaffected by any outward changes
how 10 embelish life without enervating ;
how to diversity without dissipating it
how to get rid of unnecessary hardship and
yet keep the muscle and pluck which moth
ing but hardship conters in word, how
to take on the broad character of the nine
teenth century, without giving up the
strong character of the eighteenth--this is
the present aspect of the problem which we
are set practically to solve
In doing this our assigned work, we can
hardly over-estimate the importance of
keeping up the old Vermont traditions and
habits of industry, frugaity and plain liv-
ing-country habits, old-fashioned, rustic
virtues. Indeed, one reason why Vermont
can raise men is because she is what our
city friends so merrily call her, rustic Ages
of experience have shown that the artificial
life of cities is fatal to character; that in
tellectual and moral vigor as well as physi-
cal, thrive only in contact with the soil.
Pick out the men whose force of character
has at successive epochs changed the course
of history and rcvolutionized the thought
ard life of man-pick out the men who are
to-day making history-and you will find
that almost all of them spent their youth
in the country. To explain this, we should
have to give some Importance to physical
infuences-to the effect of the various as
poets of nature, the grand mountains, the
broad sky, the infinite sea-but far more, l
think, to the moral scenery of the country,
the prevailing usages, and principles, the
| social and moral pnlpe and standards In
dustry, for instance, the necessary condi-
ton of all the virtues, in the country is re-
spectacle all usages and arrangements en-
courage it ; lazness is disreputable. In
the city the tendency is to discourage in
dustry to conceal it as a disgrace to ad-
mre and pet those who are absolved from
the necessity of it. What in the country
was stigmatized as laziness is here envied
as leisure. Look at another fundamental
virtue-honesty. We produce some rogues
and swndlers in the country but they usu-
ally find their way to the city-and why
Because they cannot bear to live under the
blaze of honest country Indignation, and go
by instinct where the prestige of splendid
roguery has hoodwinked the moral percep-
tions of society in general. Consider again
the matter of style-how easily moral
character breaks down under its demands.
| ut uObilt thSShbSieh W Wy iiO W ouihN
in society, and the strain upon ones means
brought by expensive habits, blight all
ideas of business honor, destroy the sense
of truth, and demoralize the man through
out. | do not need to be told that there
are plenty of men in large cities, who are
industrious, honest and frugal but the
power expended in resisting the prevailing
tendencies in the opposite direction ought
to have been given to opposite acquisitions.
No doubt, also, the intenser life of cities,
and their larger opportunities and induce
ments tor exertion are needful for calling
out the full power of manhood; but the
i, character cannot be safely subjected to the
! strain thus put upon it, until it has been
formed and ripened under quieter and
more wholesome influences. Most of tho
great men of the world were matured il
the country, and were then developed in
world. They were potentially great wher
they left the farm or the NINE, or the work
shop-great in their moral convictions and