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me a written copy of his remarks, but on the fifth day after 

 their dehvery, he departed this hfe, leaving a void in our 

 community that cannot be filled, especially with those, who 

 like myself, enjoyed his instruction and counsel, and for more 

 than twenty years, a social intercourse, the remembrance of 

 which no time or circumstances can obliterate. 



His address to our society was his last public discourse, 

 and agriculture was, of all other subjects, the most fitted for 

 it, because it linked together his earliest and latest days. As 

 indicative of the character of a large portion of the address 

 I give the following contrast which he drew between the 

 country and town life. 



Referring to the condition of agriculturists as regards the 

 welfare of their children, he said, that during his long ex- 

 perience as a teacher, (he had been President for forty years) 

 he never knew the son of a farmer to have failed in educa- 

 ting himself, whilst the sons of those following other occupa- 

 tions often failed. He attributed their success to the fact, 

 that farming gives constant employment to every portion of 

 the farmer's family, and thus, from earliest infancy, his chil- 

 dren acquire habits of application. The labor of the day 

 invigorates their system, and at night they are glad to seek 

 repose, and thus they grow up with strong constitutions, 

 sustained by moral habits. But those living in towns, too 

 often spend the day in idleness, and at night seek excitements 

 by which to pass away their time, thus enervating their 

 physical powers, and acquiring vicious habits that destroy 

 their success in after life. The college, he said, was no place 

 to change these habits. For good or for ill, they are formed 

 under the parental roof. 



The farmer, it was true, seldom accumulated what was 

 termed a fortune, but a competent living, such as it was best 

 for man to enjoy, was always within his power. It was an 

 existence freed from the moral dangers to which those con- 

 gregated in towns and cities are liable, and secured that 

 health without which no enjoyment could be derived from 



