The farm.
Twentieth century.
The same remarks apply to life on the farm. The incessant drudgery of monotonous toil day after day from early dawn till late at night has sent farmers and their wives to untimely graves, sometimes to the insane asylum. They need the intellectual stimulus which comes from good books, the health-giving recreation which comes with the change from the fatiguing toil of the day to the perusal of good literature in the evening. Under the more rational policy of providing a supply of good books along with the creation of a taste for reading, the working people of the next generation will be as well read, as well informed, and as capable of sustained thought as those who think money all day, or spend their strength in vocations which act upon the mind very much as a grindstone acts upon a knife,—narrowing the blade while sharpening the edge. Let it be hoped that early in the twentieth century the laboring classes will have shorter hours of work, more leisure for reading, and an appreciation of good books equal to that of Charles Lamb, who asserted that there was more reason for saying grace before a new book than before a dinner. Under the beneficent influence of free text-books and free libraries it should be possible to create in the rising generation a spirit like that of Macaulay, who declared that if any one should offer to make him the greatest king that ever lived, with palaces and gardens, and fine dinners and wines, and coaches and beautiful clothes, and hundreds of servants, on condition that he should not read books, he would decline the offer, preferring to be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books rather than a king who did not love reading.
X
OBSERVATION AND THINKING
The degree of vision that dwells in a man is the correct measure of a man.
Thomas Carlyle.
When general observations are drawn from so many particulars as to become certain and indubitable, these are the jewels of knowledge.