Ottumwa weekly courier. (Ottumwa, Wapello County, Iowa) 1872-1899, 1877-10-17
lngersoli on Farming.

/ TkU n In W AkDN ESss ifis4 4es37-sf
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 independence. We should en-
deavor to choose that business or pro.
fession the pursuit of which will give
Ius the most happiness. We can be
happy without being rich, without
being famous. / am not sure that
that we can be happy if we arc rich
or famous. There Is serenity about
the life of a farmer and hope of a
serene old age that no other business
or profession can promise. Aprofes-
sicnal man is doomed at last to feel
that all his powers are waning. He
is doomed to see younger and strong
er men pass him in the race of life ;
and he is doomed to pass an old age
of intellectual mediocrity. But on a
farm he goes as it were in partnership
with nature; he lives with flowers
and trees there is no frightful strain
upon the mind he watches his flocks
and herds ON the green slope ;he hears
| tuc Hlcapuut IdIu AAHAuS uPOH HIS
corn, and the trees he planted in
youth rustic above, while he plants
others for the children yet to be.
THE KIND OF EDUCATION NEEDED.
Our country is filed with unem-
ployed men: and the great question
to-day asking for 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. Farm
ing must be more desirable. 1t must
be elevated in its character, so that
those who work the land will have
an honest pride in their business.
They must educate their children how
to cultivate the soil. They 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 neces-
sary 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 us 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 menial service. They
seem to be willing to do anything
that can be done in tho house or in
town, but avoid farming as a leprosy.
Every young man educated in this
way is simply ruined. What little
good sense no had is educated out of
him. 1t is a 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 them
selves; that it is disgraceful to be an
idler, that only the useful are honor
able.
MAKE FARM LIFE PLEASANT.
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 ia covered
with tramps, when man leaves his
wife and daughters and goes Off to
some distant field to work, a shadow
of fear is upon his heart all day, and
the same shadow is at home. ln the
early settlement of this country the
farmer had to take his family, his axe,
his dog and his gun and go into the
wild forest building his cabin miles
from neighbors and see the smoke of
his home go mp alone in all the wide
horizon. The Anglo.Saxons are the
only people that have ever had the
pluck to do this thing. But this me-
cessity has passed away, and now,
instead of living so far apart as You
do upon your farms, you should live
in little villages; and the time is COM
ing when it will be done. With the
improved machinery which you have
you can now afford it.