Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1872 [PAGE 231]

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227 tivate a love for your calling. If to your mind there is another occupation under the sun that has more attractions than that of farming, fall out of the ranks and we will close up and send you to the rear. Exercise judgment in all you do. There is no occupation, calling or profession known to men, that requires the exercise of so many of the qualities of brain and hand, that go to make up the perfect man as designed by an all-wise Creator, as that of farming at the present time. The farmer should have the skill of the mechanic and engineer $ the tact of a lawyer 5 the sagacity of a judge; the capacity of a governor; the perseverance of a saint, and the faith of a christian 5 all these .combined with the powers of a Hercules. The proud motto of the University is "Learning and Labor," that of the young farmer should be "Brains and Muscle." While an opportunity to cultivate the former should not be neglected, the latter must not remain undeveloped. The farmer should give his attention to his business. Farming by proxy seldom pays. It is said to be a good business that will run itself. Farming is not good enough for that. Trust not the entire care of your flocks and herds to any one. Let each animal know his master's face, and see it at feeding time. This has a wonderful effect. While it tends to give the animal a quiet eye, a contented look and a sleek coat, it also tends to give his owner a goodly balance at the banker's.

" OUE HOMES AND T H E I E OENAMEOTATION."

B Y W. C. FLAGG.

"The corner-stone of the republic," said Br. Eliot, in one of his sermons, "is the hearth-stone." The truth thus proverbially expressed— that the enduring nation rests down on the virtues and habits fostered by the fireside—suggests the importance of my topic, and will justify me in attempting to specify some of the considerations that should guide us in the building and beautifying of our Illinois homesteads. The homes of Illinois are emphatically its country homes. Nowhere does the agricultural interest so predominate, and so large a part of the population cultivate the soil on so large an area of territory. To make these country homes as they should be, the nestling places of warm affections, remembered and sought in mature years, the nurseries of modest virtues and refined sentiments, they must first of all, of course, be the homes of intelligent and conscientious men and women; but they must also, in a lower but hardly less important way, delight the eye and