Farmers and mechanics! this is a subject which comes home to you. Crafty politicians are constantly calling you the _bone and sinew_ of the land; and you may depend upon it that you will never be anything else but bone and sinew without education. There is a law of God in this matter. That class of men who make the most and best use of their _heads_, will, in _fact_, be the most influential, will stand highest, whatever the theories and speeches may say. This is a “nature of things” which cannot be dodged, nor got over. Whatever class bestow great pains upon the cultivation of their minds will stand high. If farmers and mechanics feel themselves to be as good as other people, it all may be true; for _goodness_ is one thing and _intelligence_ is another. If they think that they have just as much mind as other classes, that may be true; but can you _use it as well_?
Lawyers, and physicians, and clergymen, and literary men, make the discipline of their intellect a constant study. They read more, think more, write more than the laboring classes. The difference between the educated and uneducated portions of society is a _real_ difference. Now a proud and lazy fellow, may rail and swear at this, and have his labor for his pains. There is only one way really to get over it, and that is to rear up a generation of well educated, thinking, reading farmers and mechanics. Your skill and industry are felt; and they put you, in these respects, ahead of any other class. Just as soon as your _heads_ are felt, as much as your _hands_ are, that will bring you to the top.
Many of our best farmers are men of great natural shrewdness; but when they were young they “had no chance for learning.” They feel the loss, and they are giving their children the best education they can. Farmers’ sons constitute three-fifths of the educated class. But the thing is, that they are not educated _as farmers_. When they begin to study they leave the farm. They do not expect to return to it. The idea of sending a boy to the school, the academy, and the college, and then let him go back to farming, is regarded as a mere waste of time and money. You see how it is even among yourselves. If a boy has an education, you expect him to be a lawyer, or a doctor, or a preacher. You tacitly admit that a farmer does not need such an education; and if you think so, you cannot blame others if they follow your example.