diabolical way,"--and there, accordingly, they go. Their logic is
devious, but it is always ready. It may not be convincing, but it is
conclusive. The major premise is often hidden, but it is as firm as
Fate.

"Parson Edwards's been round with the temperance-pledge," says one old
farmer to another.

"Yes," answers the latter. "Came to me. Asked me, says he, 'Mr.
Solomon,' says he, 'have you got any cider in your suller?' 'Yes, Sir,'
says I,--'sixteen barrels, good as ever you see in your life, I don't
care _where_ 't is.' 'Well,' says he, 'Mr. Solomon, my advice to you is,
to go an' tap them barrels, every one on 'em, an' let it run!'"

"Guess you told him you'd wait a spell, didn't you?"

"Humph! Let it run! _I knew his gran'sir!_ Meddlin' toad! Advisin' me to
throw my cider away! I KNEW HIS GRAN'SIR!"

Whenever any amendment is suggested, some "gran'sir" or other will be
sure to block the way. That he has been two generations dead, or that he
has no apparent connection with the point at issue, may be indisputably
proved, but it does not open the road.

Nor will the farmer's sons be any more ready to avail themselves of
their college than the farmer's self. As a general thing, they have
either ploughed their own furrow "in the good old diabolical way," and
walk in it as their fathers walked, caring for no other, or they have
acquired so unconquerable a repugnance to the uncongenial toil that they
cannot conceive of any plan or process by which it can be made
tolerable. To elevate farming by placing the lever under the farmers is
to attack a fort where its defences are strongest. But we can apply
socially as well as agriculturally the principle of a rotation of crops.
Poets are not necessarily the sons of poets. We do not draw upon
engineers' families for our supply of engineers. The greatest statesman
of the age may come from the smallest estate in the country. So also is
there no Medo-Persic law compelling the cultivation of our lands by
farmers' sons. An infusion of fresh blood is sometimes the best remedy
for longstanding disease and weakness, especially in social
organizations. The end desired is not the education of any special
existing class, but the establishment of a class fit to receive in trust
special existing interests. We want our country's soil to be
intelligently and beneficially cultivated. We desire that it shall be
rescued from ignorance and from quackery, and placed in the hands of
active in