Norwich bulletin., 1911-10-07

Cyvritten Specially for The Bulietin.)
 My text this morning is the follow ing para ph which have found, un- signed. in a recent newspaper:
 The monotony of farm life is the result of ignorance as to it's wonderful interest and possibilities. When these are understood by either bc-- or man, contentment and success will follow
 When a certain sort of good people act to discussing the problems of How to Keep Young Folks on the Farm" and it's allied How to Get and Keep Hired Help they are apt to admit at he start-oif. to show their fair inten- fions and sweet reasonableness. that arm life is lonesome and monotonous. Then admitting it, they set out to show forth some counterVailing advan- tages which they cautiously advise consideration of.
 That's just where, in my opinion. they're completely in the wrong. They're admitting a S a fact something which IS not the fact; they're accept ing as truth something which is not true: they're hunting stumps to re- treat behind, when they ought to be cha sing the enemy off the earth
 Farm life is not lonesome: farming is not monotonous. People who use these words in description of it are nGSuSHlE Ine NDTuS ana li1iSSNdlll1S llle facts. Whey either do not know, or they have been misled. or they are themaelres too cress-eyed to see st-aigkt, or too short sighted to see at all beyond their own noses. I'd as soon think of calling a dog fight mOnotonouS o- a town caucus lonesome.
 This IS not meant to deny that there are some people who find all country life both lonesome and monotonous. There are those who were either, so born or have so educated themselves that they will never be happy unless they can all the time be within a least the sight and sound if not the actual toHch of the mob. l have known people who thought they couldn't live unless they could hear ever so often the sound of the street car. have known others whose only idea of com fort was to talk or be talked to in : eady stream of intending loquacity for at least IA hours every day. I have known those who hadn't back bone enough to stand alone. cd must have enough around them all the time 10 keep them from falling over back ward or forward-or sideways.
 Also. there are some who never were and never will be satisfied anywhere No situation on earth is at all to their liking. None is ever going to be. Of course. such find farm life lonesome. ineN Nout0 ma aDA Ol1Sl me lOuG- some. I suspect they would find heaven lcnesome-if so be they should ever arrive thither. It is the station at the other end of the line where the crowd seems to be going, and the one where, 1T such observers as Dante may be trusted. there will be little monotony. Something will be happening all the time
 Furthermore, it is to be frankly zd n1itted that we are all born with diff fering tastes and unlike aptitudes. We don't all like the same things "One mans meat is another's poison" Some of us are born farm minded and some of us office minded. and some of us slum- minded. It is reasonably probable that the man born for the elurns would find a farm lonesome; it Is mighty sure that the man born for the farm would find the slums intol- era ble.
 But all this variety is in the men and women themselves, not in the life they decry It is what the philosophers call subjective. i. e.. dependent on the per- sonal twists of the individual; not ob jective. or inhering in the nature of the thing outside. Because you do not like strawberries you are not authorized to have them defined in the dictionary as 'nauseous." They are not. They are the best berry the Lord ever made ac- cording to the judgment of an inn rnense majority of the race. If you do not like them. it is not because they are not good, but because you don't know what's good. In which condition of affairs il is perfectly permissible for you to let them alone, but it is not good manners for you to denounce them and sheer at all who love them.
 It is possible that there may have