WANT OF BOYS. 47 



winter for three months and send them to the school or academy 

 — that is, as long as they will bear to be taken from the farm 

 and go back and be satisfied with it. We are satisfied with the 

 employment we are in until we learn that there are others which 

 are better ; and when we do we arc dissatisfied, uneasy. And 

 when a boy goes to school and learns philosophy and chemistry, 

 and various other branches, and sees that those who are better 

 educated in these things than he is, are more respected, he 

 becomes dissatisfied and is unwilling to return to the farm. I 

 have in my mind some smart young men who will make capable 

 farmers — are so now, indeed. They have been kept constantly 

 at home, under their father's eye, and schooled in winter. They 

 do not know how to do any other work, and as long as that is 

 the only work they know how to do, they are satisfied with it. 

 We all like to do that which we know how to do ; we are none 

 of us inclined to take up a new work. 



But another question comes into my mind : where are we 

 going to get these boys ? The population of Massachusetts is 

 becoming a foreign population. Statistics show that between 

 1850 and 1860 more Americans died in this State than were 

 born ; and during the same time our population increased 27 to 

 the square mile. Now, is it advisable to keep our boys on the 

 farm ? I say, educate them as far as possible, and let them 

 make their own selection. I have a boy just coming of age. I 

 told my boy, two years ago, I didn't wish to make a farmer of 

 him ; I wanted him to go to school until he knew more than any 

 Perkins he ever heard of. I regret that I have never had those 

 advantages of education which would enable me to give others 

 the benefit of my knowledge ; now it can only benefit me. One 

 gentleman says he believes that nine-tenths of the young men 

 graduating at the college will take to farming if it is made inter- 

 esting — if enthusiasm is displayed in the management of the 

 institution. I admire enthusiasm. It is necessary, not only to 

 our neighbors but to ourselves, to make our own blood circulate 

 freely. We have an enthusiastic man as president of that Agri- 

 cultural College, and he will do all he can ; but he cannot do 

 everything, and enthusiasm will not do everything. Enthusiasm 

 will not send nine-tenths of those young men back to the farm. 

 I will tell you where they will go ; Professor Agassiz will tell 

 you where they will go. He has got hundreds of thousands of 



