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Show TRAINING OF FARM LIFE. Rev. (Reverend) Washington Gladden, of Springfield, Mass. (Massachusetts), recently sent out a circular to one hundred permanent business men, asking about their homes during the first fifteen years of their lives. Seventy-four replied that they had received their training on a farm. Commenting on this fact, the Christian at Work says: There could not be a more hopeful indication of the prosperity of the country than an assurance that seventy-four out of eighty-eight boys in a community were training for farm life. It is a hard life, but it is an independent life; it is favorable to religious growth, and a cultivation of Christian graces; and - what is of less consequence - it is the coming aristocratic "profession" of the country. Corporations fail, manufacturing becomes dull, storekeepers cease to do business, and the hum of the factory is stilled; stocks go down, and banking-houses close; but throughout all panic and disaster, the earth yields its fruits to the frugal and industrious laborer. There is a narrow tendency manifested by those engaged in professional life to underrate the importance of life on the farm, it is considered a half-alive-and-dead sort of existence; but what can be deader than the impecunious, hard-worked clerkships in the city, with exacting duties, and little or no time for leisure or recreation? The hope of the country, next to religion, lies in the small farms, and consequently in bringing up the rising generation to work the farm. |