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which has caused this evil. If the boy had been educated with the in- 

 tention of becoming a farmer, depend on it all this mischief would have 

 been avoided ; he would have had his mind trained as thoroughly a» 

 the other, but in a different way; he would have preserved his physical 

 faculties in good order — all he learned would have increased his interest 

 in agriculture, and on his return home he would have been a pleasant 

 companion and a useful assistant to his father. We are too much in the 

 habit of laying the blame on " education," while the true error lies in 

 the mode of education. We would not expect a man who had been 

 brought up a blacksmith, at once te become a good farmer; why then 

 expect a young man who has been trained to be a lawyer or a minister 

 to do the contrary ? Depend upon it, that as agriculturists, we shall 

 never take our due place in society, nor exercise the influence we have 

 a right to hope for, imtil, as a class, we are better educated both general- 

 ly and professionally. It is mind that makes all the difference among 

 men. Daniel Webster was a poor farmer's boy — why do our hearts 

 beat high at his name, and why did a whole nation, as with one voice, 

 mourn at his death ? Not because he was a lawyer, nor a statesman, 

 but because he had the greatest mind of any man living, and this, to a 

 great extent, he owed to education. Let us then place more reliance, 

 for the future, upon self-improvement. If we are too old to learn, let us 

 at least give our sons an opportunity. 



The agricultural newspapers are most valuable aids to self-improve- 

 ment, and much of our present progress may justly be ascribed to them. 

 To this village and county belongs the honor of establishing the first 

 paper of the sort in Michigan. You cannot have forgotten your old 

 fellow-citizen, Mr. Moore — then a very young man — who with an en- 

 terprise which has since raised him to high distinction as a publisher, 

 commenced in this village the first farming paper we had. I have late- 

 ly examined the early numbers, and I assure you that for ability and 

 justness of views, it were difficult to surpass them, even now. It affords 

 me much pleasure to be able to pay this tribute of respect to a very 

 worthy and talented man, and though he has long left us, ^-e shall not 

 forget how much we are indebted to him. It does not become me, as 

 the editor of one of these papers, to say more on this subject; but allow 

 me to press upon you the importance of every farmer taking and 

 reading one or more of these journals. For one dollar a year — two 

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