Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions Part 12

FOOTNOTES:

[4] An eminent friend of education, and an Englishman, speaking of the reports for the year 1866-7, says: "The views enunciated by your local committees, while they have the sobriety indicative of practical knowledge, are at the same time enlightened and expansive. The writers of such reports must be of inestimable aid to your schoolmasters, standing as they do between the teacher and the parent, and exercising the most wholesome influence on both. Let me remark, in pa.s.sing, that I am struck with the power of composition evinced in these provincial papers. Clear exposition, great command of the best English, correctness and even elegance of style, are their characteristics."

[5] Distributed among the cities and towns, according to an Act of 1835.

(Stat. 138, -- 2.)

[6] Distributed among the cities and towns, according to the number of persons in each between the ages of four and sixteen years. (Rev. Stat., chap. 23, -- 67.)

[7] Income distributed among the cities and towns, according to population, under an Act pa.s.sed Feb. 22, 1840. (Stat. 1840, Chap. 7.) This act was repealed by an act pa.s.sed Feb. 8, 1841. (Stat. 1841, chap.

17, -- 2.)

[8] Distributed among the cities and towns, according to the number of persons in each between the ages of four and sixteen years. (Stat. 1841, chap. 17, -- 2.)

[9] Distributed among the cities and towns, according to the number of persons in each between the ages of five and fifteen years. (Stat. 1849, chap. 117, -- 2.)

A SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION.

[An Address before the Barnstable Agricultural Society, Oct. 8, 1857.]

In the month of February, 1855, a distinguished American, who has read much, and acquired, by conversation, observation, and travels in this country and Europe, the highest culture of American society, wrote these noticeable sentences: "The farmers have not kept pace, in intelligence, with the rest of the community. They do not put brain-manure enough into their acres. Our style of farming is slovenly, dawdling, and stupid, and the waste, especially in manure, is immense. I suppose we are about, in farming, where the Lowlands of Scotland were fifty years ago; and what immense strides agriculture has made in Great Britain since the battle of Waterloo, and how impossible it would have been for the farmers to have held their own without!"[10]

It would not be civil for me to endorse these statements as introductory to a brief address upon Agricultural Education; but I should not accept them at all did they not contain truth enough to furnish a text for a layman's discourse before an a.s.sembly of farmers.

Competent American travellers concur in the opinion that the Europeans generally, and especially our brethren of England, Ireland, and Scotland, are far in advance of us in scientific and practical agriculture. This has been stated or admitted by Mr. Colman, President Hitchc.o.c.k, and last by Mr. French, who has recently visited Europe under the auspices of the National Agricultural Society.

There are good reasons for the past and for the existing superiority of the Old World; and there are good reasons, also, why this superiority should not much longer continue. Europe is old,--America is young. Land has been cultivated for centuries in Europe, and often by the same family; its capacity tested, its fitness or unfitness for particular crops proved, the local and special effects of different fertilizers well known, and the experience of many generations has been preserved, so as to be equivalent to a like experience, in time and extent, by the present occupants of the soil.

In America there are no family estates, nor long occupation by the same family of the same spot. Cultivated lands have changed hands as often as every twenty-five years from the settlement of the country. The capacity of our soils to produce, when laboriously and systematically cultivated, has not been ascertained; there has been no acc.u.mulation of experience by families, and but little by the public; and the effort, in many sections, has been to draw as much as possible from the land, while little or nothing was returned to it. Farming, as a whole, has not been a system of cultivation, which implies improvement, but a process of exhaustion. It has been easier for the farmer, though, perhaps, not as economical, if all the elements necessary to a correct opinion could be combined, to exchange his worn-out lands for fresh soils, than to adopt an improving system of agriculture. The present has been consulted; the future has been disregarded. As the half-civilized hunters of the pampas of Buenos Ayres make indiscriminate slaughter of the myriads of wild cattle that roam over the unfenced prairies of the south, and preserve the hides only for the commerce and comfort of the world, so we have clutched from nature whatever was in sight or next at hand, regardless of the actual and ultimate wrong to physical and vegetable life; and, as the pioneers of a better civilization now gather up the bones long neglected and bleaching under tropical suns and tropical rains, and by the agency of trade, art, and industry, extort more wealth from them than was originally derived from the living animals, so we shall find that worn-out lands, when subjected to skilful, careful, scientific husbandry, are quite as profitable as the virgin soils, which, from the day of the migration into the Connecticut valley to the occupancy of the Missouri and the Kansas, have proved so tempting to our ancestors and to us. But there has been some philosophy, some justice, and considerable necessity, in the course that has been pursued. Subsistence is the first desire; and, in new countries where forests are to be felled, dwellings erected, public inst.i.tutions established, roads and bridges built, settlers cannot be expected, in the cultivation of the land, to look much beyond the present moment. And they are ent.i.tled to the original fertility of the soil. Europe pa.s.sed through the process of settlement and exhaustion many centuries ago. Her recovery has been the work of centuries,--ours may be accomplished in a few years, even within the limits of a single life. The fact from which an improving system of agriculture must proceed is apparent in the northern and central Atlantic states, and is, in a measure, appreciated in the West. We have all heard that certain soils were inexhaustible. The statement was first made of the valley of the Connecticut, then of the Genesee country, then of Ohio, then of Illinois, and occasionally we now hear similar statements of Kansas, or California, or the valley of the Willamette. In the nature of things these statements were erroneous. The idea of soil, in reason and in the use of the word, contains the idea of exhaustion.

Soil is not merely the upper stratum of the earth; it is a substance which possesses the power, under certain circ.u.mstances, of giving up essential properties of its own for the support of vegetable and ultimately of animal life. What it gives up it loses, and to the extent of its loss it is exhausted. It is no more untrue to say that the great cities of the world have not, in their building, exhausted the forests and the mines to any extent, than to say that the annual abundant harvests of corn and wheat have not, in any degree, exhausted the prairies and bottom lands of the West. Some lands may be exhausted for particular crops in a single year; others in five years, others in ten, while others may yield undiminished returns for twenty, fifty, or even a hundred years. But it is plain that annual cropping without rotation, and without compensation by nature or art, must finally deprive the soil of the required elements. Nor should we deceive ourselves by considering only those exceptions whose existence is due to the fact that nature makes compensation for the loss. Annual or occasional irrigation with rich deposits,--as upon the Nile and the Connecticut,--allowing the land to lie fallow, rotation of crops and the growth of wood, are so many expedients and provisions by which nature increases the productiveness of the earth. Nor is a great depth of soil, as two, five, ten, or twenty feet, any security against its ultimate impoverishment.

Only a certain portion is available. It has been found in the case of coal-mines which lie at great depths, that they are, for the present, valueless; and we cannot attach much importance to soil that is twenty feet below the surface. Neither cultivation nor vegetation can go beyond a certain depth; and wherever vegetable life exists, its elements are required and appropriated. Great depth of soil is desirable; but, with our present knowledge and means of culture, it furnishes no security against ultimate exhaustion.

The fact that all soils are exhaustible establishes the necessity for agricultural education, by whose aid the processes of impoverishment may be limited in number and diminished in force; and the realization of this fact by the public generally is the only justification necessary for those who advocate the immediate application of means to the proposed end.

And, gentlemen, if you will allow a festive day to be marred by a single word of criticism, I feel constrained to say, that a great obstacle to the increased usefulness, further elevation, and higher respectability, of agriculture, is in the body of farmers themselves. And I a.s.sume this to be so upon the supposition that agriculture is not a cherished pursuit in many farmers' homes; that the head of the family often regards his life of labor upon the land as a necessity from which he would willingly escape; that he esteems other pursuits as at once less laborious, more profitable, and more honorable, than his own; that children, both sons and daughters, under the influence of parents, both father and mother, receive an education at home, which neither school, college, nor newspaper, can counteract, that leads them to abandon the land for the store, the shop, the warehouse, the professions, or the sea.

The reasonable hope of establis.h.i.+ng a successful system of agricultural education is not great where such notions prevail.

Agriculture is not to attain to true practical dignity by the borrowed l.u.s.tre that eminent names, ancient and modern, may have lent to it, any more than the earth itself is warmed and made fruitful by the aurora borealis of an autumn night. Our system of public instruction, from the primary school to the college, rests mainly upon the public belief in its importance, its possibility, and its necessity. It is easy on a professional holiday to believe in the respectability of agriculture; but is it a living sentiment, controlling your conduct, and inspiring you with courage and faith in your daily labor? Does it lead you to contemplate with satisfaction the prospect that your son is to be a farmer also, and that your daughter is to be a farmer's wife? These, I imagine, are test questions which not all farmers nor farmers' wives can answer in the affirmative. Else, why the custom among farmers' sons of making their escape, at the earliest moment possible, from the labors and restraints of the farm? Else, why the disposition of the farmer's daughter to accept other situations, not more honorable, and in the end not usually more profitable, than the place of household aid to the business of the home? How, then, can a system of education be prosperous and efficient, when those for whom it is designed neither respect their calling nor desire to pursue it? You will not, of course, imagine that I refer, in these statements, to all farmers; there are many exceptions; but my own experience and observation lead me to place confidence in the fitness of these remarks, speaking generally of the farmers of New England. It is, however, true, and the statement of the truth ought not to be omitted, that the prevalent ideas among us are much in advance of what they were ten years ago. In what has been accomplished we have ground for hope, and even security for further advancement.

I look, then, first and chiefly to an improved home culture, as the necessary basis of a system of agricultural education. Christian education, culture, and life, depend essentially upon the influences of home; and we feel continually the importance of kindred influences upon our common school system.

It will not, of course, be wise to wait, in the establishment of a system of agricultural education, until we are satisfied that every farmer is prepared for it; in the beginning sufficient support may be derived from a small number of persons, but in the end it must be sustained by the ma.s.s of those interested. Other pursuits and professions must meet the special claims made upon them, and in the matter of agricultural education they cannot be expected to do more than a.s.sent to what the farmers themselves may require.

An important part of a system of agricultural education has been, as it seems to me, already established. I speak of our national, state, county, and town a.s.sociations for the promotion of agriculture. The first three may educate the people through their annual fairs, by their publications, and by the collection and distribution of rare seeds, plants, and animals, that are not usually within reach of individual farmers. By such means, and others less noticeable, these agencies can exert a powerful influence upon the farmers of the country; but their thorough, systematic education must be carried on at home. And for local and domestic education I think we must rely upon our public schools, upon town clubs or a.s.sociations of farmers, and upon scientific men who may be appointed by the government to visit the towns, confer with the people, and receive and communicate information upon the agricultural resources and defects of the various localities. It will be observed that in this outline of a plan of education I omit the agricultural college. This omission is intentional, and I will state my reasons for it. I speak, however, of the present; the time may come when such an inst.i.tution will be needed. In Ma.s.sachusetts, Mr. Benjamin Bussey has made provision for a college at Roxbury, and Mr. Oliver Smith has made similar provision for a college at Northampton; but these bequests will not be available for many years. In England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Belgium, Prussia, Russia, Austria, and the smaller states of Europe, agricultural schools and colleges have been established; and they appear to be the most numerous where the ignorance of the people is the greatest. England has five colleges and schools, Ireland sixty-three, while Scotland has only a professors.h.i.+p in each of her colleges at Aberdeen and Edinburgh. In France, there are seventy-five agricultural schools; but in seventy of them--called inferior schools--the instruction is a compound of that given in our public schools and the discipline of a good farmer upon his land, with some special attention to agricultural reading and farm accounts. Such schools are not desired and would not be patronized among us. When an agricultural school is established, it must be of a higher grade,--it must take rank with the colleges of the country. President Hitchc.o.c.k, in his report, published in 1851, states that six professors would be required; that the first outlay would be sixty-seven thousand dollars, and that the annual expense would be six thousand and two hundred dollars. By these arrangements and expenditures he contemplates the education of one hundred students, who are to pay annually each for tuition the sum of forty dollars. It was also proposed to connect an agricultural department with several of the existing academies, at an annual expense of three thousand dollars more. These estimates of cost seem low, nor do I find in this particular any special objection to the recommendation made by the commissioners of the government; any other scheme is likely to be quite as expensive in the end.

My chief objection is, that such a plan is not comprehensive enough, and cannot, in a reasonable time, sensibly affect the average standard of agricultural learning among us. The graduation of fifty students a year would be equal to one in a thousand or fifteen hundred of the farmers of the state; and in ten years there would not be one professionally educated farmer in a hundred. We are not, of course, to overlook the indirect influence of such a school, through its students annually sent forth: the better modes of culture adopted by them would, to some extent, be copied by others; nor are we to overlook the probability of a prejudice against the inst.i.tution and its graduates, growing out of the republican ideas of equality prevailing among us. But the struggle against mere prejudice would be an honorable struggle, if, in the hour of victory, the college could claim to have reformed and elevated materially the practices and ideas of the farmers of the country. I fear that even victory under such circ.u.mstances would not be complete success. An inst.i.tution established in New England must look to the existing peculiarities of our country, rather than venture at once upon the adoption of schemes that may have been successful elsewhere. Here every farmer is a laborer himself, employing usually from one to three hands, and they are often persons who look to the purchase and cultivation of a farm on their own account; while in England the master farmer is an overseer rather than a laborer. The number of men in Europe who own land or work it on their own account is small; the number of laborers whose labors are directed by the proprietors and farmers is quite large. Under these circ.u.mstances, if the few are educated, the work will go successfully on; while here, our agricultural education ought to reach the great body of those who labor upon the land. Will a college in each state answer the demand for agricultural education now existing? Is it safe in any country, or in any profession or pursuit, to educate a few, and leave the majority to the indirect influence of the culture thus bestowed? And is it philosophical, in this country, where there is a degree of personal and professional freedom such as is nowhere else enjoyed, to found a college or higher inst.i.tution of learning upon the general and admitted ignorance of the people in the given department? or is it wiser, by elementary training and the universal diffusion of better ideas, to make the establishment of the college the necessity of the culture previously given? Every new school, not a college, makes the demand for the college course greater than it was before; and the advance made in our public schools increases the students in the colleges and the university. We build from the primary school to the college; and without the primary school and its dependents,--the grammar, high school, and academy,--the colleges would cease to exist. This view of education supports the statement that an agricultural college is not the foundation of a system of agricultural training, but a result that is to be reached through a preliminary and elementary course of instruction. What shall that course be? I say, first, the establishment of town or neighborhood societies of farmers and others interested in agriculture. These societies ought to be auxiliary to the county societies, and they never can become their rivals or enemies unless they are grossly perverted in their management and purposes. As such societies must be mutual and voluntary in their character, they can be established in any town where there are twenty, ten, or even five persons who are disposed to unite together. Its object would, of course, be the advancement of practical agriculture; and it would look to theories and even to science as means only for the attainment of a specified end. The exercises of such societies would vary according to the tastes and plans of the members and directors; but they would naturally provide for discussions and conversations among themselves, lectures from competent persons, the establishment of a library, and for the collection of models and drawings of domestic animals, models of varieties of fruit, specimens of seeds, gra.s.ses, and grains, rocks, minerals, and soils. The discussions and conversations would be based upon the actual observation and experience of the members; and agriculture would at once become better understood and more carefully practised by each person who intended to contribute to the exercises of the meeting.

Until the establishment of agricultural journals, there were no means by which the results of individual experience could be made known to the ma.s.s of farmers; and, even now, men of the largest experience are not the chief contributors.

Wherever a local club exists, it is always possible to compare the knowledge of the different members; and the results of such comparison may, when deemed desirable, be laid before the public at large. It is also in the power of such an organization thoroughly and at once to test any given experiment. The attention of this section of the country has been directed to the culture of the Chinese sugar-cane; and merchants, economists, and statesmen, as well as the farmers themselves, are interested in the speedy and satisfactory solution of so important an industrial problem. Had the attention of a few local societies in different parts of New England been directed to the culture, with special reference to its feasibility and profitableness, a definite result might have been reached the present year. The growth of flax, both in the means of cultivation and in economy, is a subject of great importance. Many other crops might also be named, concerning which opposite, not to say vague, opinions prevail. The local societies may make these trials through the agency of individual members better than they can be made by county and state societies, and better than they can usually be made upon model or experimental farms. It will often happen upon experimental farms that the circ.u.mstances do not correspond to the condition of things among the farmers. The combined practical wisdom of such a.s.sociations must be very great; and I have but to refer to the published minutes of the proceedings of the Concord Club to justify this statement in its broadest sense. The meetings of such a club have all the characteristics of a school of the highest order. Each member is at the same time a teacher and a pupil. The meeting is to the farmer what the court-room is to the lawyer, the hospital to the physician, and the legislative a.s.sembly to the statesman.

Moot courts alone will not make skilful lawyers; the manikin is but an indifferent teacher of anatomy; and we may safely say that no statesman was ever made so by books, schools, and street discussions, without actual experience in some department of government.

It is, of course, to be expected that an agricultural college would have the means of making experiments; but each experiment could be made only under a single set of circ.u.mstances, while the agency of local societies, in connection with other parts of the plan that I have the honor diffidently to present, would convert at once a county or a state into an experimental farm for a given time and a given purpose. The local club being always practical and never theoretical, dealing with things always and never with signs, presenting only facts and never conjectures, would, as a school for the young farmer, be quite equal, and in some respects superior, to any that the government can establish.

But, it may be asked, will you call that a school which is merely an a.s.sembly of adults without a teacher? I answer that technically it is not a school, but that in reality such an a.s.sociation is a school in the best use of the word. A school is, first, for the development of powers and qualities whose germs already exist; then for the acquisition of knowledge previously possessed by others; then for the prosecution of original inquiries and investigations. The a.s.sociations of which I speak would possess all these powers, and contemplate all these results; but that their powers might be more efficient, and for the advancement of agriculture generally, it seems to me fit and proper for the state to appoint scientific and practical men as agents of the Board of Agriculture, and lecturers upon agricultural science and labor. If an agricultural college were founded, a farm would be required, and at least six professors would be necessary. Instead of a single farm, with a hundred young men upon it, accept gratuitously, as you would no doubt have opportunity, the use of many farms for experiments and repeated trials of crops, and, at the same time, educate, not a hundred only, but many thousand young men, nearly as well in theory and science, and much better in practical labor, than they could be educated in a college. Six professors, as agents, could accomplish a large amount of necessary work; possibly, for the present, all that would be desired. a.s.sume, for this inquiry, that Ma.s.sachusetts contains three hundred agricultural towns; divide these towns into sections of fifty each; then a.s.sign one section to each agent, with the understanding that his work for the year is to be performed in that section, and then that he is to be transferred to another. By a rotation of appointments and a succession of labors, the varied attainments of the lecturers would be enjoyed by the whole commonwealth. But, it may be asked, what, specifically stated, shall the work of the agents be? Only suggestions can be offered in answer to this inquiry. An agent might, in the summer season, visit his fifty towns, and spend two days in each. While there, he could ascertain the kinds of crops, modes of culture, nature of soils, practical excellences, and practical defects, of the farmers; and he might also provide for such experiments as he desired to have made. It would, likewise, be in his power to give valuable advice, where it might be needed, in regard to farming proper, and also to the erection and repair of farm-buildings. I am satisfied that a competent agent would, in this last particular alone, save to the people a sum equal to the entire cost of his services. After this labor was accomplished, eight months would remain for the preparation and delivery of lectures in the fifty towns previously visited. These lectures might be delivered in each town, or the agent might hold meetings of the nature of inst.i.tutes in a number of towns centrally situated. In either case, the lectures would be at once scientific and practical; and their practical character would be appreciated in the fact that a judicious agent would adapt his lectures to the existing state of things in the given locality. This could not be done by a college, however favorably situated, and however well accomplished in the material of education. It is probable that the lectures would be less scientific than those that would be given in a college; but when their superior practical character is considered, and when we consider also that they would be listened to by the great body of farmers, old and young, while those of the college could be enjoyed by a small number of youth only, we cannot doubt which would be the most beneficial to the state, and to the cause of agriculture in the country.

An objection to the plan I have indicated may be found in the belief that the average education of the farmers is not equal to a full appreciation of the topics and lectures to be presented. My answer is, that the lecturers must meet the popular intelligence, whatever it is.

Nothing is to be a.s.sumed by the teacher; it is his first duty to ascertain the qualifications of his pupils. I am, however, led to the opinion that the schools of the country have already laid a very good basis for practical instruction in agriculture; and, if this be not so, then an additional argument will be offered for the most rapid advance possible in our systems of education. In any event, it is true that the public schools furnish a large part of the intellectual culture given in the inferior and intermediate agricultural schools of Europe.

The great defect in the plan I have presented is this: That no means are provided for the thorough education needed by those persons who are to be appointed agents, and no provision is made for testing the qualities of soils, and the elements of grains, gra.s.ses, and fruits. My answer to this suggestion is, that it is in part, at least, well founded; but that the scientific schools furnish a course of study in the natural sciences which must be satisfactory to the best educated farmer or professor of agricultural learning, and that a.n.a.lyses may be made in the laboratories of existing inst.i.tutions.

It is my fortune to be able to read a letter from Professor Horsford, which furnishes a satisfactory view of the ability of the Scientific School at Cambridge.

"_Cambridge, Sept. 19, 1857._

"MY DEAR SIR: The occupation incident to the opening of the term has prevented an earlier answer to your letter of inquiry in regard to the Scientific School.

"The Scientific School furnishes, I believe, the necessary scientific knowledge for students of agriculture (such as you mention), 'who have been well educated at our high schools, academies, or colleges, and have also been trained practically in the business of farming.' It provides:

"1st. Practical instruction in the modes of experimental investigation.

This is, I know, an unrecognized department, but it is, perhaps, the better suited name to the course of instruction of our chemical department. It qualifies the student for the most direct methods of solving the practical problems which are constantly arising in practical agriculture. It includes the a.n.a.lysis of soils, the manufacture and testing of manures, the philosophy of improved methods of culture, of rotation of crops, of dairy production, of preserving fruits, meats, &c.

It applies more or less directly to the whole subject of mechanical expedients.

"2d. Practical instruction in surveying, mensuration, and drawing.

"3d. And by lectures--in botany, geology, zoology, comparative anatomy, and natural philosophy.

"Some of them--indeed, all of them, if desired--might be pursued practically, and with the use of apparatus and specimens.

"This course contemplates a period of study of from one year to two and a half years, according to the qualification of the pupil at the outset.

He appears an hour each day at the blackboard, where he shares the drill of a cla.s.s, and where he acquires a facility of ill.u.s.tration, command of language, an address and thorough consciousness of real knowledge, which are of more value, in many cases, as you know, than almost any amount of simple acquisition. He also attends, on an average, about one lecture a day throughout the year. During the remaining time he is occupied with experimental work in the laboratory or field.

"The great difficulty with students of agriculture, who might care to come to the Scientific School, is the expense of living in Cambridge. If some farmer at a distance of three or four miles from college, where rents for rooms are low, would open a boarding-house for students of agriculture in the Scientific School, where the care of a kitchen garden and some stock might be intrusted to them, and where a farmer's plain table might be spread at the price at which laborers would be received, we might hope that our facilities would be taken advantage of on a larger scale. As it is, but few, comparatively, among our students, come to qualify themselves for farming."

I should, however, consider the arrangements proposed as temporary, and finally to be abandoned or made permanent, as experience should dictate.

It may be said, I think, without disparagement to the many distinguished and disinterested men who have labored for the advancement of agriculture, that the operations of the government and of the state and county societies have no plan or system by which, as a whole, they are guided. The county societies have been and are the chief means of influence and progress; but they have no power which can be systematically applied; their movements are variable, and their annual exhibitions do not always indicate the condition of agriculture in the districts represented. They have become, to a certain extent, localized in the vicinity of the towns where the fairs are held; and yet they do not possess the vigor which inst.i.tutions positively local would enjoy.

The town clubs hold annual fairs; and these fairs should be made tributary, in their products and in the interest they excite, to the county fairs. Let the town fairs be held as early in the season as practicable, and then let each town send to the county fairs its first-cla.s.s premium articles as the contributions of the local society, as well as of the individual producers. Thus a healthful and generous rivalry would be stirred up between the towns of a county as well as among the citizens of each town; and a county exhibition upon the plan suggested would represent at one view the general condition of agriculture in the vicinity. No one can pretend that this is accomplished by the present arrangements. Moreover, the county society, in its management and in its annual exhibitions, would possess an importance which it had not before enjoyed. As each town would be represented by the products of the dairy, the herd, and the field, so it would be represented by its men; and the annual fair of the county would be a truthful and complete exposition of its industrial standing and power.

Out of a system thus broad, popular, and strong, an agricultural college will certainly spring, if such an inst.i.tution shall be needed. But is it likely that in a country where the land is divided, and the number of farmers is great, the majority will ever be educated in colleges, and upon strict scientific principles? I am ready to answer that such an expectation seems to me a mere delusion. The great body of young farmers must be educated by the example and practices of their elders, by their own efforts at individual and mutual improvement, and by the influence of agricultural journals, books, lecturers, and the example of thoroughly educated men. And, as thoroughly educated men, lecturers, journals, and books of a proper character, cannot be furnished without the aid of scientific schools and thorough culture, the farmers, as a body, are interested in the establishment of all inst.i.tutions of learning which promise to advance any number of men, however small, in the mysteries of the profession; but, when we design a system of education for a cla.s.s, common wisdom requires us to contemplate its influence upon each individual. The influence of a single college in any state, or in each state of this Union, would be exceedingly limited; but local societies and travelling lecturers could make an appreciable impression in a year upon the agricultural population of any state, and in New England the interest in the subject is such that there is no difficulty in founding town clubs, and making them at once the agents of the government and the schools for the people.

In the plan indicated, I have, throughout, a.s.sumed the disposition of the farmers to educate themselves. This a.s.sumption implies a certain degree of education already attained; for a consciousness of the necessity of education is only developed by culture, learning, and reflection. Such being the admitted fact, it remains that the farmers themselves ought at once to inst.i.tute such means of self-improvement as are at their command. They are, in nearly every state of this Union, a majority of the voters, and the controlling force of society and the government; but I do not from these facts infer the propriety of a reliance on their part upon the powers which they may thus direct.