376 [Senate 



APPENDIX TO MR. GREIG'S REPORT ON AGRICULTURAL 



EDUCATION. 



Letter JVb. J. from the Deputy Superintendent of the Common School 

 Department of the State of JVew- York. 



[referred to especially in the preceding report.] 



SECRETARY'S OFFICE, ) 



F Common Sc: 

 Albany y July 



Department of Common Schools, "> 



1, 1844. J 



Hon. John Greig, 



Chairman Committee of State Agricultural Society: 



Dear Sir — In compliance with the request contained in a circular 

 forwarded to me on the 26th ult. by the Recording Secretary of the 

 New-York State Agricultural Society, I have the honor to submit 

 briefly my views respecting the introduction of agricultural studies in- 

 to the several district schools, and of agricultural books into the seve- 

 ral district libraries of our State. 



It is a source of the highest gratification to every enlightened mind, 

 that a very large and rapidly increasing portion of the moral and in- 

 tellectual energy of the age is resuming the direction of agricultural 

 and horticultural enterprise and knowledge. The numerous vicissi- 

 tudes and disastrous results which have ensued from a too general di- 

 version of men's faculties and powers into the various channels of 

 personal and political ambition — of unhallowed speculation, and over- 

 crowded professions, have produced a decided revulsion in public 

 sentiment in this respect ; and the ranks of the " ancient and honora- 

 ble " fraternity of agriculturists are beginning to be replenished from 

 all the other departments of the social organism. This infusion of 

 new material, although perhaps not immediately productive in all 

 cases of practical benefit, arising from a want of experience, and from 

 a prevailing tendency to substitute plausible theories for the slow 

 results of cautious labor, must nevertheless be regarded as a valuable 

 accession, in many points of view. It brings to bear upon the inte- 

 rests of agriculture that invincible spirit of enterprise which, in what- 

 ever field its energies are unfolded, is eminently characteristic of the 

 age, and adequate to the accomplishment of its highest behests. It 

 gives new life and vigor to agricultural labor, by raising it to the dig- 

 nity of a science — by applying to all its departments the principles of 

 advancing knowledge, and the discoveries and inventions of a pro- 

 gressive civilization, and by disseminating a practical acquaintance of 

 its details among all classes and conditions of community. It recon- 

 ciles and harmonizes those clashing interests which, from mutual igno- 

 rance of the value and relation of each to the others, have heretofore 



