Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1888-07-27

matter, it is my firm conviction that the
average farm hand who is not compelled
to use his earnings for the support of
family expends twenty times the amount
of money for the purposes of pleasure,
recreation and dissipation as is expended
by the average employers of such help,
for like purposes.
With an equally judicious expenditure
of time and money, on the part of farm
employees, at least 90 per cent of this
class might attain to as honorable finan-
cial and social positions, as their en-
ployers. This would, of course, involve
the necessity of employing their winter
evenings and leisure hours, now often
worse than wasted. in fitting themselves
for business pursuits and the duties of
citizenship.
| have often observed that those young
men who receive but moderate wages
more often succeed financially than those
who receive the highest wages; that
young men with good habits who begin
life with little or nothing, make better
financers than those who inherit for
tunes. The reason for this is obvious.
The former are more sure to acquire and
retain habits of industry, temperance and
frugality, those indispensable requisites
of success, while the latter, even with
farm surroundings, often acquire habits
of extravaganza, Incidence and proflga-
cy, those never-failing sources of power
ty, discomfort and wretchedness.
larger proportion of farm laborers
accumulate property and become owners
of real estate than do the corresponding
class in cities. They ordinarily receive
less wages per day, but they also spend
less. The temptations to needless expen-
diture are not only less, but the purchas-
ing power of money, when used for the
payment of rents and in the provision of
the ordinary family supplies, is greater
in the country than in the city. Accum-
ulation of wealth is determined by the
surplus saved and not by the amount
received.
There was never a time in the history
VI cui NCuhll NIlCl tllt lClldSlll2 DOW-
er of wages paid for labor was so great
as at the present time. In other words,
the wages now paid willpurchase more of
the necessities, comforts and luxuries of
life than at any previous time. Or again,
the wages now paid, when judiciously ex-
pended, will purchase given amount of
personal or family supplies and leave
larger balance for deposit i'm
savings banks or to swell the amount
of accumulated wealth in some form than
ever before. And yet there was never
period of such unrest and discomfort
among the laboring classes as at the pres
ent time. Strikes originate with the best
paid laborers and not with those most
oppressed.
The proper solution of the labor ques-
ton. so far as it relates to agriculture, is
not in the payment of increased wages,
especially to male help, but in the use of
more farm machinery, by the aid of
which in connection with horse power
one man may often accomplish several
times as much as he otherwise could. and
at much greater profit to his employer.
Improved personal efficiency must come
from the use of those influences which
will develop in this class those essential
conditions of success of which | have
spoken. Throw around them those con-
ditions which will develop higher man
hood, and we shall make them better SER
wants as well as better citizens.
Develop in men laudabe desire to at
tain to higher moral, intellectual and
social positions, and they will constantly
improve in moral, intellectual and social
worth. They will become everyway bet
ter fitted for the duties of life in
any position which they may occupy.
As servants, they will be more industri-
Gus, faithful and trustworthy; more eco
nomical in the use of their own and their
employers property; less addicted to
intemperance and other vices in the in
diligence of which so large proportion
of the money paid for service is now
squandered, and from which so much of
inetfciency, poverty, discomfort and
wretchedness result.
The remedy for poor, inefficient and
untrustworthy farm help must, then, be
in part a moral and educational one, and
will perhaps require more of compulsory
education and legal protection than in
time past. The children of the state are
the wards of the state. and upon their
training and development depend its
future peace and prosperity. They must
not only be educated for honorable citi-
zenship, but guarded from temptations to
prohigacy and vice. In this connec-
ton shall in my next article speak of
temperance legislation and the theory
upon which it should be based.
Japan has $50 newspapers, 1000 miles
of railway and moro than o000 n,ilas nf