nd sound, symmetrical development, to the
stock of his farm. In this he is a true, practical philosopher. But
what is his treatment of her who bears his children? The same
physiological laws apply to her that apply to the brute. Their strict
observance is greatly more imperative, because of her finer
organization; yet they are not thought of; and if the farm-yard fail
to shame the nursery, if the mother bear beautiful and well-organized
children, Heaven be thanked for a merciful interference with the
operation of its own laws! Is the mother in a farm-house ever regarded
as a sacred being? Look at her hands! Look at her face! Look at her
bent and clumsy form! Is it more important to raise fine colts than
fine men and women? Is human life to be made secondary and subordinate
to animal life? Is not she who should receive the tenderest and most
considerate ministries of the farmer's home, in all its appointments
and in all its service, made the ceaseless minister and servant of the
home and all within it, with utter disregard of her office? To expect
a population to improve greatly under this method is simply to expect
miracles; and to expect a farmer's life and a farmer's home to be
attractive, where the mother is a drudge, and secures less
consideration than the pets of the stall, is to expect impossibilities.

Another cause which has tended to the deterioration of the farmer's
life is its solitariness. The towns in New England which were settled
when the Indians were in possession of the country, and which, for
purposes of defence, were settled in villages, have enjoyed great
blessings; but a large portion of agricultural New England was
differently settled. It is difficult to determine why isolation
should produce the effect it does upon the family development. The
Western pioneer, who, leaving a New England community, plants himself
and his young wife in the forest, will generally become a coarse man,
and will be the father of coarse children. The lack of the social
element in the farmer's life is doubtless a cause of some of its most
repulsive characteristics. Men are constituted in such a manner, that
constant social contact is necessary to the healthfulness of their
sympathies, the quickness of their intellects, and the symmetrical
development of their powers. It matters little whether a family be
placed in the depths of a Western forest, or upon the top of a New
England hill; the result of solitude will be the same