--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Tanner, Joseph M. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 11 number: 5 published: 1908-03 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Joseph M. Tanner, "Thoughts of a Farmer—V. The Test of Goodness and Value, in Horses and Men," *Improvement Era* 11, no. 5 (March 1908): 338–341.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1105unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera1105unse start_page: 338 end_page: 341 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1908-03) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera1105unse publication_year: 1908 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1908, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Thoughts of a Farmer—V. The Test of Goodness and Value, in Horses and Men THOUGHTS OF A FARMER. BY DR. JOSEPH M. TANNER. v.— THE TEST OF GOODNESS AND VALUE, IN HORSES AND MEN. Last year I tried the experiment of Buying a number of fouryear-old colts, as it was a year when the work would not be so taxing upon them; with the thought that at five they would be in prime condition for service. The quality of these colts was as diversified as the characters often found among men. Some of them were easy to break. They were good from the start. Others were stubborn and would refuse to move. One lay down for three days and would not budge, and another was mean to strike, and so nervous that it was really dangerous at times to go near him. Within a month or six weeks these extremities began to pass away, and the colts settled down to a measurably steady gait. Some of them, however, were persistent in their determinations not to yield. They are all now what may be called steady work horses, but they still have their differences. Some of the horses, so easily managed in the beginning, move about as if they had been worked for forty years, and were expecting every day to be pensioned off. Goodness and laziness are synonymous in them. Some of the horses that gave me unusual trouble, and were difficult to manage at the outset, have carried with them into the harness an activity and willingness that make them ideal work teams. When I look at these horses and think of how they started out, and how they are working now, I wonder if some such characteristics are not peculiar to men. You know you can harness THOUGHTS OF A FARMER. 339 some men to anything, at any time. They are always willing to be harnessed, even if they are lazy, and don't do much work. Some men are obstinate, self-willed, restless under restraint, in the beginning of their manhood, but when once converted and broken to the higher duties of life they become ideal workers. I imagine that sometin-es we are likely to confound lethargy with goodness. We think that men, like horses, who never kick up their heels are really good. After all, the real test of goodness is to be found in service; and men who are always doing something, who set in motion everything they touch, are the positive characters in life, whose real service is likely to be most beneficial. Men that are always setting things in motion, it is true, may now and then give the wrong direction to some of their energies; they may hurt somebody; but after all, if we find a preponderance of good in them, and the whole tendency of their lives is towards that which is better and higher, shall we not ascribe something of goodness to them? It is very easy to imagine a man against whom nothing in particular can be said. He never started a rock down hill, nor one up hill, for that matter. He does not move things, he is simply moved. He is easily guided, stops when he is told to, and frequently stops when he is not told to. In short, he has no working energy in his life. When I was a boy, my neighbor, a man of mature years, used to tell the following little anecdote of one of his boyhood experiences: "I was sent out," said he, "one morning to shuck corn, and instead of doing as I was told, I ran off to play. At night, as I approached my home, my father met me at the gate with a willow. I knew what to expect, I had seen him before in the same attitude. I began to plead. I said, 'Father I hain't done nothin'.' 'That is just what I am going to whip you for.' " That boy's idea of wrong was something positive, a direct injury which he might have done to others. It sometimes happens that people fail to compare what they have done with what they might have done, and the negative quality of wrong doing is not very apparent to them. I can very easily imagine that some of my horses might have been made vicious for life, or have been made balky, through im- 340 IMPRO VEMENT ERA . proper handling. In such cases we attribute their condition to the folly or ignorance of the man who breaks them. It is true, there may be a natural element of balkiness or viciousness; but as a rule we ascribe their bad conditions to improper training. If you have noticed, a balky horse or a vicious horse has a tremendous amount of nerve energy and great will power. When they can be induced to go and take the right direction, they are capable of an enormous amount of service. How often we meet in life people whom we esteem unfortunate because they are doing the wrong thing; and when they try to do the right thing, they do it in the wrong way! We can see in them high qualities misdirected. They may be cured in this life; they may not be; but this life is not the end, and if this life is not the end, there is hope beyond, and there must be opportunities beyond. There are, then, two things that we must look at in a man: first, the existence of superior qualities; second, the use to which he is putting his talents. If a man has no talents, and therefore few or no temptations, we may say that he is doing nothing bad. So far so good. If we see a man stumbling, sometimes falling, but always trying to keep on his feet, we know that in him there is an inherent power of action, a capacity for doing things. Some day, in time or eternity, he may overcome besetting temptations and turn all his energies to good account. He may enter the service of the Lord at the eleventh hour and get his reward with those who have been toiling all the day long. I have known a horse that required two months of a season to break him to the harness, and yet in the remaining months did more actual service than the horse of easy going propensities at the outset would do in a whole season's work. It is true that if horses of superabundant energy would only submit in the beginning, they would be much more valuable ; but superabundance of energy is very frequently incompatible with the spirit of submission. How hard it is, then, at the outset of one's career, to tell how his energies are likely to serve him, unless, indeed, he has no energy at all! However, right or wrong, and from the standpoint of a purely earthly career, we are compelled to believe that the man whose energies, however great, carry him in the wrong direction, and to the injury of others, is really, after all, more undesirable THOUGHTS OF A FARMER. 341 than the man who has less energy and is so lazy that he may be guided without effort, and whose services to his fellowmen are really very small. What puzzling things the conditions of human existence are after all. In the life of Jesus, we are often impressed by the good things he found in certain classes, that were discarded by the society of those times. Albeita. Canada.