The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1894-03-09


look like the azure dome of heaven turned
bottom side up. And besides, our and every
other nation is responsible to and dependent
upon the farmer for daily bread. Let the
plow and the reaper stop for single season
and this glorious land Of plenty would send
up wailing cry of want that would drown
the present cry Of distress from the Gogebic
Range as gentle whispers are lost IN the
roar OF Niagara's cataract
The farmer is the man that feeds the
world; and yet when an honest farmers
boy goes to the city with load of dirty
potatoes the pale faced city dandy who has
more clothes than credit and more credit
than brains will draw his mantle about him
and look with disdain upon the rustic lad,
like peevish dog that greedily devours the
last morsel from your hand and then bites
you because you yentured so near him.
The broadcloth coat need not look down
upon the ragged jacket for there's energy
and back-bo in its owner if there is hay
seed in his hair.
But there is point where the average
farmer boy is not up to the standard of the
city boy. He is not as well educated. 1t
is generally believed that the farmer boy
needs no education beyond ''readin', 'ritin'
and 'rithmetic, that only clerks. lawyers,
doctors and the like need any further educa-
ton. Now say that il you want to see a
lively farmer boy put bee i'm his bonnet.
How much of what a lawyer has studied
does he put into practical use in his profess
sion? There are but few lawyers but that
have studied algebra and geometry. Now
there is no one that has practical use for
algebra and geometry except the surveyor,
the pedagogue and the civil engineer; but
we say that such studies develop and train
the mind and teach man to think and
reason and so they do. 1t is said that Gen.
Grant owed much of his success i'm moving
his forces to the discipline he had received
in playing checkers. And SO it Is with
geometry; and if geometry will help the
physician to doctor, the preacher to preach,
and the lawyer to lie, it will help the farmer
to farm.
Is 1t profitable for farmers boy to study
literature? Which is the better for any boy
to read, dime novel or Talmages sermons?
Which is the most profitable, to read how
some imaginary hero rescues his best girl
from burning building by jumping from a
fourth story window with her in his arms
and alghts upon the ground without injury;
or to trace the true sincerity and fortitude
of Longfellow's Evangelinep There is no
civilized being on earth who is worthy of
the name of human being or who has any
thing but the heart of a knave, who would
not be elevated to higher plane and in
stilled with higher ideals Of life by reading
''Evangeline," "Gray's ''Elegy," Pilgrims
Progress" or paradise Lost" There is
both profit and pleasure in such literature,
and if there is any pleasure or enjoyment
titled to 1t than he who is the staff and sup
porter of mankind?
Years ago when neighbors were few and
far between and before each noticed the
they used to visit each other often and by
the sleigh load. Why not revive that old
custom under new impulse? If the young
people were once interested in our good lit
erature and in reading and talking about
the nations that have passed and gone they
would enjoy meeting together during the
long winter evenings as a literary circle.
The boys would no longer desire to spend
CARROT of the neighborhood to play cards, to
hear womankind slandered and God AL
mighty brought to naught. They would no
longer have occasion to squander their even
ings in the village where they are drawn by
the natural course of events into the saloon
and questionable company of various places.
Give every boy and girl tina. has the
gumption to get it liberal education. Give
them the benefit of our free public school
system. Don't complain that you have to
pay school tax when you have no children
to send to school. No one has to pay tax
unless he has something to pay it on. A
man that pays $40 school tax won't pay
more than $500 in his lifetime, il he dies in
any kind of season, and that is buying the
privilege Of living In a civilized, educated
community at mighty cheap rate. If you
had but one child to educate at your own
expense and away from home it would cost
$500 for two or three years schooling such
as can now be had for mere song at any
of our village schools under our present
free school system. Strike out our free
schools and you take away our nations
strongest prop, deprive the average farmer
10y of anything but a district school educa-
ton and take one long stride backward
toward barbarism. Perfect and maintain
free education, educate the masses of the
people and our glorious ''Ship of State"
will sail firmly and majestically onward
through time, and unchanged by age. un-
SCARED by ignorance or barbarism, her
proud sails unrent by despo.ism and an
archy, at last, loaded with the precious souls
of grateful people, she will safely anchor