Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1877-11-28
The Bone and Sinew.

The politicians and the literary gentlemen
whom we invite to address us at the county
fairs are very fond of telling us that we are
the bone and sinew of the country. Now
this would be a handsome compliment Tor
would have been before the era of improved
Shorthorns) to pay herd of bulocks. But
addressed to men, "even farmers it rather
forcibly recalls the admonition of the poet
"Be not like dumb driven cattle" and leads
many of us to inquire what the worthy
orators who call us the bone and sinew
think themselves to be. Probably it would
not be very far from the mark to suppose
that they, in their own estimation at least
are to be regarded in the light of brains to
that body polite of which we farmers con-
stitute the muscular and tendinous part.
1t is, however, physiological truth that
harmonious development of the whole body
is essential to the perfect action of each par
ticular part. A man may have good brain,
but without good muscles, firm bones and
sound heart and lungs the good brain works
to small advantage. And the reverse is true;
the whole body works to small profit, no
matter how vigorous, unless its action is
directed by well-developed brain.
1t is we'll indeed it is essential, that
farmers and all who work with their hands
should have stout bodies, but there is no law
save the law of ancient custom and preju.
dice, against their having as good and strong
aoti hrain tbaxr hau tho
bodies are made strong and active by bodily
exercise, the brains can only be made strong
and active by mental exercise, that is, by
study and thought.
When the time shall come that manual
laborers are also mental laborers-when it
is believed to be as necessary and advan-
tageous to carefully educate young men and
women designed for the farm and the work.
shop as it now is to educate them for the
professions and the parlor, it will not be
thought difficult to find anything to compli-
ment farmers about except their bones and
sinews. Atpresent society looks at the sub
ject of the education of the people with very
doubtful gaze. The folks who think, with
the old Virginia governor, that working-men
ought to be kept in ignorance, are not all
dead. There are good many of them, in
fact, living yet. Education is privilege,
and as long as it can be confined to a class
it makes it privileged class. Every privi-
legged class is interested in preserving the
monopoly which gives it an advantage over
other classes. This is natural, and to be
expected, though it is not Christian. But
it is not those who now possess education
of the better order that are the greatest
obstacles to popular education. Many of
them are earnest advocates for it, scorning
the thought of keeping its benefits to them
selves and their posterity alone The truth
must be told, that the greatest indifference
and the greatest opposition to improve
education for the workng-people is found
among the working people themselves. Most
of them care far more for some coarse
sensual enjoyment than for learning, either
for themselves or their children. Saying
nothing about ardent spirits, fifty dollars "A
year are more willingly paid for tea, coffee
and tobacco, than ten dollars for books, or
for the support of schools. Far more inter
est is taken in the quality and cheapness of
those useless and hurtful drugs, than in the
goodness of the teaching which the children
are getting at the school-house.
1t is certainly fact that man may re-
ceive much ill-treatment from those who de-
sire to monopoiize education for their own