Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1876-04-06
Stick to the Farm, Boys.

You surely don't mean that, when
towns and cities offer such splendid in
ducements, and promise such rich re-
wards? Yes, mean just that Stick to
the farm!
In these times, and they are stirring
times too, times that call for all the stir
and activity that can be crowded into ev-
cry young mans life, the draft is alto
gether to the towns The result is, the
towns and cities are crowded with young
men seeking employment, looking for a
situation, and still seeking and looking,
| month after month, till at length many
are compelled to accept such ill-paid
labor as farm life never offered them.
But | want wealth.
Yes, so does everybody. But everybody
does not get it. No, not one in hundred
of those who enter the mad race for rich
es, succeeds. Some lose health, some lose
life, some lose honor, some lose everything
that man can lose, and yet do not succeed.
And those who do, find that " he that low
eth silver shall not be satisfied with
silver" With wealth come cares, vexa-
tons, and annoyances innumerable.
Wealth, of itself, makes no man happy.
But / want education"
That sounds better. That is a most
laudable ambition. Strive for it, Get it.
Make use of it. Go to your neighboring
school till it can teach you no more Then
go higher, if you can. If not, study at
home. Go through a course of study if
you can possibly accomplish it, Study
Greek, Latin, modern languages, mathe-
MATES, history, science, and then 90 back
to your farm, and till it all the better and
more faithfully for the knowledge you
have acquired. Store your mind with in
formation, cultivate your taste, enlarge
your views of the world and its affairs,
and then in the midst of your toll you
will experience a placid Joy of your in
tellectual treasures, that will lift toll from
the level of drudgery. The meanest toll
becomes drudgery, only when the worker
is no higher than the work he is doing.
Learn to see in all the book of nature
that will always lie open before you in
your open-air calling, a beauty and glory
that never beam in upon the occupants of
dingy offices and dark stores.
Then marry some sweet contented
country maiden of similar taste. Build
your house, and though it be of logs, it
will be radiant with the truest, richest en-
joyment Of life. The best enioyments life
has for US are not those that flow in from
outward circumstances, but those that well
up from secret springs in the soul.
AS returns come in, more slowly per-
haps than they may come IN to the few
ones among the many who have
gone to the city, beautify your home,
plant trees, set out shrubbery, buy, now
and then, choice book or picture, and
SO grow on slowly but surely into the Sc
renity of happy, quick life.
Let others, if they will, thrust them
selves into the already overcrowded pro-
LESSONS, and become, in due time, added
to the number of weak lawyers ant quack
doctors standing about with their hands
IN their pockets, waiting for business,
while their families genteelly starve, but
be yourself a living demonstration of the
honor of hard work. Then if, as years
60 on, fine competence reward your Ia
Dor, and enable you to give employment
to those that need it, and retire yourself
from the more laborious departments of
your calling to become head, rather than
hand, you will look back without regret,
and forward without anxiety. And If to
all this, you add that fear of the Lord
which is the beginning of wisdom, Won
can go serenely down the vale of closing
years, aud leave behind you name
which, if it does not dazzle, may yet be a
blessed name crowned with q blessed
Farmer.