The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1899-10-08
THE MAN WITH THE HOE.
Young Lady Gives Her Views About
Position of the Man With the Hoe.

Position of the Man Win the Hoe.
| To the Editor: In reading Prof.
Markham's poem '"T'he Man With the
| Hoe" poem full of pathos and power,
we are apt to forget, while our sympathy
| goes out to this man that the individual
is Free though the different classes OF
| labor may be circumscrbed.
1.-The Man With the Hoe is not the
victim of fate, in that n long line of
ancestors were toilers. and that his de-
scendants must needs follow in his steps.
| He is born with certain environments,
| but he can change them. We forget this
| is not ii country where men are born
| to the purple or to rags.
| 1t is Il country where man may
| be obscure today and President tomor-
| row, where the son of Il pauEer may be
| a millionaire, and the son of the NIL
| lionaire pauper. n country where
| the man with the hoe might look back
| and count among his forefatners poet
a painter. or a president, etc; where Il
| poet, painter, or president may point
| back with pride, to a man leaning on
| his hoe.
The man with the hoe is surely salts
| fed, else why not change? No man
may say to him, THUS far and no farth-
or shalt thou go" He has not climbed
the mountain heights of ambition: he
dweIls in the valley of content That
he can not analyze the flowers at his
feet. or paint with pen or brush the
beauties of nature around him, is it Il
sign he does not enjoy them in his own
way? Had he good college education,
it is an open question if he could have
written Prof. Markham's poem-or if
he had possessed all the advantages
of an education in art. could he have
painted Millet's picture? What of the
thousands who write and paint and
achieve no success!
There is infinite variety in Gods crea-
ton No two of his creatures are so
exactly alike, but there is still dis
tinguishing difference, mentally ana
physically There is a niche for each
of us to fill and how it is filled, de-
ponds on the individual We are not
all possessed Of the five talents or the
two, but to make the best of what we
have is common privilege.
Burns was Il man with a hoe, but he
dropped it for the pen, and with thoughts
of every day toll, sweetened by his
love of nature. he wrote his name III
letters that will not fade.
Mr. Markham himself, according to
an article in your last Sundays edition,
was a man on a ranch, but very proba-
bly, he is now leaning ON his pen-if not
for rest, for sustenance. There have
always been men with the hoe, who
made it stepping stone to something
higher. and there are today hundreds of
MI
honor, in various walks Of life, who
learned their first lessons with the
hoe Honesty perseverance and virtue
tell there as elsewhere. They are foun-
dation stones of character, individual
and national-a trinity without which
the life of neither is complete.
A system of education that teaches
only the knowledge acquired III books,
and that fosters the thought even in
directly, that manual labor is degrading,
is faulty. No labor however low can
be degrading, unless we make it so by
| our thoughts. If we feel that it is de-
grading, it can drag us down till, like
the man with the hoe, we may look
and feel like brothers to the OK. Or
we may use it as a 'stepping-stone of our
dead selves to higher things" When
ever we do our best no matter what the
work we lift it above drudgery and our
selves to higher level. All labor tends
to the development of our faculties and
his education is best rounded to COM
pleteness. who has passed over the
rough path of toll, spurred by poverty,
with self-relance for guide and who
then adds the education OF the schools.
The man with the hoe Is one of the
foundation stones of our civilization. He
cannot take the place of the man in the
turret, nor can the man in the turret
take his place; yet both are needed.
Neither can we be all foundation stones
nor all stones in the turret. Even in
a level wall there must be foundation
stones and there are finishing stones. no
matter how high or how low the wall.
That education in the commonly ac-
cepted sense Of that word would be
enough to lift this man Mr.. Millet and
Prof Markham have painted, above,
brotherhood with the OK, is Il mistake.
To give him this education would but
add to his stolidity cupidity, the cum
ming of the fox, the stealth of the tiger,
or the hoggishness of the swine, as his
nature might determine. If honesty,
virtue and perseverance were not part
of his education, it would be Il failure.
If all the men who have changed their
environments had been content to lean
like the man with the hoe on tive
things around them, we would today
be poorer rs a nation IN literature
craftsmanship and art Discomfort or
unrest with present surroundings may
sometimes be the result of education,
but oftener education is the result
of unrest-the unrest in the individual
that is simply the seeking of true envi-
ronment.
MISS X. e. JONES.