The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1877-10-25

low dogs that came bounding over Il
worm fence like wild beasts. There
no sense and no profit in such a lite,
is not living; it is hardly existing.
| ask the farmers of Illinois to beaut
their homes, to surround their house
with flowers, to make everything BET
tiful and attractive. You don't live d
to your privileges. In every farmers
house there should be BATHROOM.
You have no idea of the civilizing in
flucnces of the bath. When you come
from the field, tired, covered with dtsstJ
nothing can be SO refreshing as bath.
Keep clean. I am not one of those
who think that in order to raise hogs
YOU must be one. Put on clean clothes.
take a seat in the yard under the trees
and amidst the perfume of flowers, sur
rounded by your family, and you will
know what it is to feel like a gentle.
man.
In our time we have plenty of me-
chanics, but no tradesmen. In the
subdivision Of labor we have 500 or
1000 men working upon different parts
of the same thing, each skilled in his
particular branch and no. other we
have, say, in a shoe factory, a thou
sand men, but not one shoemaker.
Each does some particular part, and
not one knows the entire trade. The
result is. the moment the factory shuts
down, these men are out of employ
ment. Out of employment means out
of work out of work means out of
bread, and that means famine and hor-
ror. 1t is thousand.times better to be
good farmer than a part of me
chanic. 1t is better to work the soil
and be independent, than to work for
any man or corporation at salary.
Every man should endeavor to belong
to himself. l swear to you that will
be my own man. Do do not mortgage
the possibilities of your future. Have
the courage to take life as it comes,
feast or famine. Think of hunting q
gold mine ut Il dollar a day! And
think of finding it !! How would you
feel then ? We are lacking in indie
pendence, we are lacking in true cour-
age, when for fear for the future we
take the niggardly salary of the present.
dependent, than be President of the
United States without independence,
or than to be member of Congress,
filled with doubt and trembling, feeling
of the popular pulse, resorting to art
and artiiice to keep my place.
We need more manliness, more real
independence. We must take care of
ourselves. We must take care of our
children. This we can do by labor.
This we can do and preserve our indie
pendence. We should endeavor to
choose that business or profession the
pursuit of which will give us the most
happiness. We can be happy without
being rich, without being famous. l
am not sure that we can be happy if
we are rich and famous. There is Sc
renity about the life of farmer and
hope Of serene old age that no other
business or profession can promise. A
professional man is doomed ut last to
feel that all his powers are waning.
He is doomed to see younger and
stronger men pass him in the race of
life; and he is doomed to pass an old
age of intellectual mediocrity. But on
Il farm he goes as it were in partner
ship with Nature: he lives with flowers
and trees; there is no frightful strain
upon his mind; the nights are filled
with sleep and rest; he watches his
flocks and herds on the green slopes;
he hears the pleasant rain falling upon
his corn, and the trees he planted in
youth rustic above, while he plants
others for the children yet to be.
Our country is filled with unem-
ployed men, and the great question to-
day asking solution is, What shall be
done with these men, or rather what
shall these men do? The only answer
in my Judgment is, they must cultivate
the soil. Farming must be more de
sirable. 1t must be elevated in its
character. SO that those who work the
land win have an honest pride in their
bushes. They must educate their chill
must not be educated simply to be
ministers or lawyers. or doctors, but they
must be educated to be farmers. 1t
must be understood that education is as
necessary to till the soil as to follow
any other business or profession in the
world. We must get rid of the idea
that little education units one for
labor. There are to-day hundreds of
graduates of Harvard and Yale and
other colleges who are agents of sew
ing machine companies, solicitors for
insurance, clerks, copyists, in short
performing mental service. They seem
to be willing to do anything that can
be done in the house or in n town, but
avoid farming as they would leprosy.
Every young man educated in this way
is simply ruined. What little good
sense he had is educated out Of him. 1t
is thousand times better to have good
sense without education than education
without good sense. Give your sons an
education that will enable them to help
themselves, an education that will be
of real use. Let them be taught to
help themselves. that it is disgraceful
to be an idler, that only the useful are
honorable.
If YOU want more men and women on
the farm, you must do something to
make farm life more pleasant than it
is. One difficulty with life upon a
farm is that it is lonely. In these days,
when the country is covered with
tramps, when man leaves his wife and
daughters and goes off to some distant
field to work, shadow of fear is upon
his heart all day, and the same shadow
is at home. In the early settlement of
this country the farmer had to take his
family, his AK, his dog and his gun, and
go into the wild forest, building his
cabin miles from any neighbors, and
see the smoke of his home 90 up alone
in the wild horizon. The Anglo-Saxons
are the only people that have ever had
the pluck TO- do this thing. But this
necessity has passed away, and now,
instead, of living 80 far apart as YOU do
upon your farms, You should live in
little villages; and the time is coming
when it win ba done. With the i'm
proved machinery which you have you
can afford it now.
1t is notnecesssrY in this age of the
world for the farmer to rise in the mid
die Of the night and begin his work.
This getting up so early in the morn.
ing is a relic Of barbarism. 1t has made