Year: 1879

It IS QOuDLloSS true that TOT the last 0U Or 40 years the tendency of population has been into the valleys; or, rather, toward centers. The greater eenters of the country are Boston, Providence, New York. And then we have the smaller and more local centers-New-Ha- ven Hartford, Norwich, WIllimantic, Putnam and possibly others. In like manner, to these central places all wealth tends. Business and the opportunities for business and wealth go in the same direction; and it is, perhaps, be- cause of this that population goes. It possibly ought to be said that population follows, rath- CT than leads, in this new tendency.

 Your young men, so soon as they are eman- cipated from the need of parental care antl have come to that period of their lives when they are to rely on their own efforts, seek some of these places. They go te Putnam, to Norwich to Providence; or, if they are more ambitious, they take bolder wing, and find or strive to make for themselves places in New York or Boston. Others, with lighter fancy and more buoyant hope, needing the advice of great men, ''Go Vest" Your young wo- men, setting their steps in the same direction as their lovers and brothers and friends, follow. after them, to be wives or to seek livelihood in some of the various forms of employment these places afford

 And so year after year we have seen the brightest and best of our young men and wO- men, those of the largest capacity and the most ambition, go out to swell the increasing numbers of some more favored locality am sure that I may appeal with confidence to the experience of every middle-aged person in this audience for the truth of what have laid down. Sometimes this flow of wealth and of numbers toward central places is spoken of as the stream of civilization. That civilization obeys law similar to and as memorable as the law of gravitation ]; and so population and business and wealth-like drawn toward like come together, for the common advantage of all. 1 am not willing to admit that this tendency is at all a necessary part of civiliza- tion. The converse rather is true.

 Guizot defines civilization as follows. He says in his history:

 fertilization may be taken to signify mere- ly the multiplication of artificial wants, and of the means and refnements of physical enjoy ment. It may also be taken to imply both a state of physical we'll being and a state of su- perior. intellectual and moral culture. It is properly relative term. It refers to cer- tain state of mankind as distinguished from barbarism. Civilization, therefore, in it's most general idea, is an improved condition of man, resulting from the establishment of social Or- der in place of the individual independence and lawlessness of the savage or barbarous life."

 I do not propose to be drawn aside into any

 

 nition, which will be admitted to be as author ative as any, to show that civilization may | thrive as we'll in rural as in an urban com | munity. But, whether it be civilization or something else which has changed the lines of | business and population, let us recur again to it's effects on the country towns. What it has done in respect to their people-both as regards number and as regards quality-we have al-- ready seen.

 Sc n &olI al,~ that certain state, being tributary to another, was compelled to discharge the yearly pay. ments by stated number of their children. know not that the story is true, It, doubtless, is one of the myths that have come down to us | through the shadows of an exceedingly remote | past. But almost any one of these country | towns does in fact pay to the surrounding cities tribute as pitiless and as fatal as this. l Consider also what the cities take from the | towns of their products; that all the hay, the | beef, the pork, the corn, the beans, the eggs the milk, the potatoes, the turnips the cab bages, and the onions go, year in and year out, into the omniverous maw of the cities. And this process has been continued till that con- dltion Of exhaustion has come to you of which we made note in the outset. It is the old fable of the stomach and the members inverted. In the fable the members withheld nourishment from the stomach. In our case the members have contributed to the support of the central organs till they are themselves weakened by want and likely to perish by starvation. The cities of the land take your sons and your daughters: they take your tiocks and your herds and all your substance. And they pay you back what? Perhaps you think they pay you in money. What is money, compar- ed with the vitality needed to sustain nation2 | They don't give you back your children they | don't give you back the fertility of your soil they don't give you back your influence. They take from you all that makes money desirable and then mock you with their offers of money. But what can be done? And this is the ob- ject for which am speaking

 It IS hardly possible that we can call back those who have found homes in the West. It is still more unlikely that we can make the cities give up to us those whom they have ta- ken. Nor is either of these necessary. The West lays firm hand on all it's citizens. The cities are the workshops of the nation, whose busy activities cannot wisely be dispensed with. We cannot call back or restore to any great extent. Can we not, however, bring about such changes in country life as shall for all future time make everybody unwilling to leave the country?

 This is what l would have you of the coun- try, and of the city also, consider, and c0nsid- CT with care.

 Let us make country life more attractive. Let us more and more leave the West to take care of itself. Let us still more come to regard the cities as workshops, and not as places for constant abiding. No one wishes to dwell in his workshop at all times nor can it be done without serious injury. Can we not place be- 1 fore these dwellers iD the workshops such at- l fractions as shall cali them forth into our midst? Why should any young man from l these country towns go to the far West to live In almost any of these towns there are good schools. There are churches, and the social advantages which these give; post-Ofhces and frequent mail all the conveniences afforded by having physicians, tradesmen, and mechan- icS within easy reach; indeed, all the good and convenient things which result from Q long established and a well-regulated social or ganization. Why leave all these? What com. pensating advantages are there in the West, especially to man who wishes to have the comforts of home, to rear and train up ohil- dren to an honorable and useful citizenship There can be none! Certainly none worthy of being named. G y f.'.r' The reasons most often urged are the cheap ness of land and the lightness of taxation. In these particulars am quite confident that no material advantage can be gained at the West. The price of improved farms-that is, farms with buildings, fruit trees fences. water, and the like-is as small right here in many parts

 

 pect to taxation, Ii aIy places in the West are more heavily burdene lthan we are here. Take, for instance, the parts where the towns and counties have been bonded to build railroads, etc, etc. ~N - '' 'ti s'..' If any man and his wife here in this County of Windham, starting life on farm, will put forth tho same degree of industry that would be required on farm in any part of the West; if they will live with the same economy, will undergo the same fatigue and suffer the same self-denial, will wear no better dress, will ir- dulge in no more amusement; in other words, if they will live here as they would be conl- pelled to live there, they can certainly build up fortune here much more readily than | there.

 | That 80 many young men from New Eng land do go to the West for homes seems to mo | the result of transformation or of wrong theo- ries of life. .. The Board of Agriculture in this State is charged with the general duty of promoting agricultural education and the general interests