THE WISCONSIN FARMER.



in its coarse even for war. From the cradlo
to the coffin, the crowding columns move ox
with locketep through the successive stages o'
life. Children cannot halt in its progress foi
returning peace to afford leisure for educa-
tion. On into the years-to manhood, to citi-
zenship, to destiny-it rushes, whether learn-
ing lights its path and guides its steps oi
ignorance involves it in error and conducts it
headlong into vice.  And if in peace the
school is needful to rear our children to an
intelligent and virtuous manhood, how much
greater the need in war, which with its
inseparable barbarisms, is drifting the na-
tion from its onward course of peaceful civili-
zaton back to the old realms of darkness and
of brute force.
  The high and heroic aims of this conflict
will doubtless mitigate the evils which neces-
sarily attend an appeal to arms. To say
nothing of the physical health and prowess
that camp life and military discipline will
develope, the love of country and love of lib-
erty will rise again from mere holiday senti-
ments to the grandeur and power of national
passions. and the Union, made doubly pre-
cious by the blood which its maintenance will
cost, will attain a strength which no mortal
force can shake or destroy.  History will
grow heroic again, and humanity itself will
be inspired and glorified by this fresh vindi-
cation of its God-given rights and duties in
this incarnation and triumph of the princi-
ples of constitutional and republican liberty.
The too absorbing love of money which has
hitherto characterized us, has loosened, some-
what, its clutch, and been won to acts of gen-
uine benevolence, at the sight of an imperiled
country; and the fiery demon of party sinks
away abashed before the roused patriotism
which lays life itself on the altar of liberty.
  But with all this the barbarisms of war are
too palpable and terrific to be forgotten or
disregarded, and the wise and patriotic states-
man will find in them a more urgent reason
for fostering those civilizing agencies which
nourish thd growing intelligence and virtue
of the civilized people. Against the ideas
and vices engendered in the camps, and
amidst the battle-fields, we must raise still
higher the bulwarks of virtuous habits and
beliefs, in the children yet at home. We shall
need the utmost stretch of home and school
influence to save society and the State from
the terrible domination of military ideas and
military forces, always so dangerous to civil
liberty and free government-HoN. J. M.
ORNoO-y, Miehigan &Sool R1porn.

  The Agricultural College lands have at last
all been located, and the Commissioners' Re-
port gives evidence that the work has been
well done. Better lands have been secured than
it was supposed were vet vacant in the State.



      MISCELLANEOUS.

      A Glimw at the Dlinci State Fair,
  PLO,. HOYT:-Dea Sir --In compliance
with your request, I will say a few things in
relation to the Illinois State Fair, which I had
the pleasure of attending.
  DzCATUBN where it Was held, is pretty well
down south for the accommodation of the
northern portion of the State, which, inclu-
ding Chicago, undoubtedly contains much the
largest half of the fair-going population
and to make the matter worse, the railroad
arrangements were almost entirely incom-
plete and out of joint. Going dowa on the
Illinois Central at night, parties had to lay
over at Tolono, a little (less than a) one
horse town, eight hours, and we understood
the same was the fact on the St. Louis and
Alton road, showing no arrangements what-
ever to accommodate the Fair-a sad oversight
on the part of the officers of the Society, or
lack of accommodation of the railroad com-
panies. As the Fair is to be held there next
year, it is to be hoped that the matter will be
better attended to, as a stop of eight or ten
hours in a place where not even a newspaper
can be found, is a sad loss of time to one who
is in a hurry and, has only a little time to
either use or waste. So much for the getting
to the Fair, and now for what I saw there.
  Decatur is a pleasant, scattering, western
prairie town, claiming some four thousand
inhabitants, split through by the Great West-
ern Railway, on the track of which, about one
and a half miles west of the city, are the fair
grounds, situated upon an undulating, woodsey
site, just cleared and fitted for the occasion.
The grounds are capable of being made
very beautiful, and were finely fitted, having
had some S10,00 expended upon and about
them, making them in all things convenient
for holding a fair. Good water, that all-im-
portant item;, is supplied in abundance by a
small creek and some fine springs. Also a
good half-mile track, within the grounds and
out of the way of every thing else,
Artioles an exzihitian wAer meAinm in



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