No. 63.] 13 



ease or security we enjoy; and the safety and happiness of every 

 civilized community, not overborne by foreign oppression, are exactly 

 in proportion to its intellectual cultivation. So also, as a general 

 proposition, individuals prosper and exert influence according to the 

 standard of their attainments. This truth applies also to masses in 

 a community. The agricultural class here, as well as in every other 

 country, notwithstanding their numbers, enjoy comparatively inade- 

 quate compensation and abated influence, because they have a lower 

 standard of education than other classes. There is not, as is often 

 supposed, a certain amount of knowledge which it is profitable for the 

 farmer to possess, and dangerous to exceed. Learned men sometimes 

 fail in this honorable pursuit, but not in consequence of their acquire- 

 ments; and the number of such is vastly less than those who fail 

 through ignorance. It is a fact, which, however mortifying, cannot 

 be too freely confessed, or too often published, that an inferior edu- 

 cation is held sufl[icient for those who are destined to the occupation 

 of agriculture. The standard established for them is seldom as high 

 as the full course of instruction given in our common schools, and 

 consists in an ability to read, but scarcely with pleasure or advantage, 

 to write without facility or accuracy, and to perform simple process- 

 es in the art of numbers. Higher attainments than these are allowed 

 to all other classes. The mechanic and the artisan are at least in- 

 structed in the nature and properties of the substances which they 

 use, and in the principles and combinations of the mechanical pow- 

 ers they employ, while each profession jealously guards against the 

 intrusion of any candidate, who however skilful in its particular mys- 

 teries, has not completed a course of scientific or classical learn- 

 ing. 



There is no just reason for this discrimination. The domestic, so- 

 cial and civil responsibilities of the farmer, are precisely the same 

 with those of every other citizen, while the political power of his 

 class is irresistible. The preparation of the soil to receive a germ, the 

 culture of the plant, its protection against accidents, and the gather- 

 ing of its fruit — each of these, apparently simple operations, involves 

 principles of science more recondite than do the studies of the learn- 

 ed professions. Every other department of industry has willingly 

 received aid from science. In mechanism, the laws of power and 

 motion are so well understood, that achievements to which human 

 energy was once deemed inadequate, are easy and familiar. The 



