Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 January 1877 — Why the Boys Leave the Farm. [ARTICLE]

Why the Boys Leave the Farm.

It is a question that often puzzles the minds of parents in the countiy to know why their boys are not content on the farm where they have been born and raised, but as soon as they are free to do for themselves, they wish to leave the farm for the city. There are doubtless various reasons for this, some of which are evidently beyond the control of any parent, while others are evidently within the reach of a remedy. It is with some hope that when the difficulty is pointed out, the remedy will be applied at once. There is no’doubt but that the general desire for the rapid accumulation of wealth is at the foundation of this desire to try some other calling in life. Farming is not a business in which a man can hope to gain a great fortune in a short time. There is a strong desire for the rapid accumulation of wealth, and consequently the slow but sure gains of the farm are given up for the very plausible but deceptive promise of a sudden fortune in some other calling. But Ulis does not account for all this restless discontent on the farm. Much of this grows out of circumstances that are under the control of parents. One reason is the constant drudgery that is connected with .fores life. Very few people do hard work just from the love of it; and it is hardly reasonable to expect our boys to do so. The boys are too often made to feel that they are valued like the mule only in proportion to their skill and endurance in hard work. A rest or holiday, is too often begrudged to them, as if it was time actually lost. It is not strange that a boy thus driven as though he were a machine for making money should not only grow tired of farm life, but should also associate it in his mind with all that is hard, disagreeable and drudging. Under such circumstances the boy’s mind very naturally turns to some other pursuit in life, ana he is ready to run away from the farm at the first opportunity. No one will deny that farming has some hard, disagreeable toil connected with it, and so has any and every honorable pursuit in life. ~ But false impressions are often made on the minds of children by the comparisons unfavorable to farming, that parents often make between this and other branches of business. Merchants and professional men are often spoken of in the hearing of the boys, as too lazy to work, leading lives of ease and leisure. Now this charge is both unjust and untrue; but it fastens on the mind of the bov, and he is led to contrast such a life of ease, as he supposes it to be, with his present life of toil. Again, the style of domestic life found too frequently on the form is not the kind to bind the hearts of the children to the old homestead. Some parents seem to have an idea that evciything that goes to adorn and beautify, or in any way to add to the attractions and pleasure of home, is not only money thrown away, but is a sign of effeminacy and weakness. Pictures and music, and flowers and pleasant company are excluded with such care that home becomes to the young man the most forlorn and dismal place he ever finds. Is it strange that he should look to more inviting fields for the scenes of his future life! Nearly everybody has an aspiration for knowledge, and especially is this the case with the brightest and most energetic of farmers’ boys—those who would be an ornament to the business, or lift it into a higher plane. But there are thousands of farm-houses where books and papers, especially such as are calculated to give information on, and a high appreciation of, the farmer’s calling, are almost entire strangers. The young man craves intellectual food and activity, but under the regime of home there is no stimulus to any mental activity. His inte.lectual aspirations are all crushed by the conviction that farming means manual toil and drudgery and nothing more. And though surrounded on all sides by the great books of nature, Ailed to repletion with the most interesting wonders, yet for want of a teacher, or books to guide him, he turns away from thia rich intellectual feast to seek in less promising fields that which can be found nowhere

else in such abundance, and of such easy access as on the farm. The conclusion, therefore, is that if the boys are to be kept on thi farm, they must be made to feel it is to their interest to stay there. Home must be made attractive, and the boy must be made to feel that he has here a field for mental activity, where his intellectual powers may find ample scope for their exercise and development, and where he may hope to rise above the constant routine of toll and drudgery. The parents who would keep the boys on the rarm must remember that they are human beings with tastes and feelings that must be, in a reasonable degree, consulted and gratified. They have aspirations that should be encouraged and assisted. Give the boys a chance at home to become men of intelligence and refinement, and the city will have lost its most powerful attraction for them.— L. J. Templin, in Ohio Farmer. Hatch’s Ufivbrsai. Cough Stout his been in use 15 years, and has always been warranted to cure, and ia now sold by over 6,000 druggists, who say they seldom nave a bottle returned. Many of the best physicians fa the country prescribe it as the nest remedy for coughs, colds and CROUP within their knowledge. Pleasant to take, sure to cure, and should be sold by all druggists. It should be in every family, especially those with croupy children. Try it and you will always keep it. Two sizes—Bo cents and *I.OO. Put up by D. W. Hatch &, Co., Jameston, N. Y.