"His fault!" says the farmer, and say many men of whom better things might be expected. "How can he get wisdom that holdeth the plough, and that glorieth in the goad, that driveth oxen, and is occupied in their labors, and whose talk is of bullocks?" How? By "seeking her as silver, and searching for her as for hid treasures." For remember, O farmer! the despairing question is from below, the inspiring answer from above. It is not the Bible, but the Apocrypha, that casts doubt upon agricultural education. There is wisdom to him that holdeth the plough. Honor and health and wealth and great-heartedness are to be found in the soil. Earth is not one huge incumbrance to weigh man down; it is the means by which he may rise to heavenly heights. Earth has been the mother of dignity ever since her Maker's eyes looked upon her, and the Maker's voice pronounced her very good. And "Very Good" is the true verdict. Ignorance, stupidity, and sin insist upon perpetuating the curse from which she has been once redeemed; but a blessing lies in her heart for him who has but the courage to grasp it. What analogies have they to prop their conclusions withal, who maintain the necessary degradation of the soil? Fire, air, and water bow down and do obeisance to man. They are analyzed and recombined. They are studied with insatiable curiosity. They receive the absorbed attention of a lifetime. Daily their secrets are wrested from them. Their likings and their dislikings are forced into man's service; they are coupled in strange unions and harnessed to his chariot. Whithersoever he will, they bear him. They minister to his lowliest needs, they bend to his loftiest dreams. They have lifted him from the earth whereon he crept, and have given him the wings of the wind. Swifter than the eagle flies, swift as the lightnings flash, they run to and fro at his command. Nor has the limit of their capacities been reached. Nor has man ceased to pry into the mysteries which lie hidden in their depths. He was once their abject slave. He is now their crowned king. He will one day be their absolute monarch. But while the three ancient elements are thus wrought into glory and honor, the fourth sister, Earth, remains a clod. They give gifts to men, but she only sears him with the brand of servitude. Every bold seeker, adventuring into their arcana, bears back his treasure-trove; but the earth only mocks her wooer, and robs him of his strength who sleeps upon her knees!