438 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



"v^hatsoever wc possess will enable us to transmit •wealth to the 

 coming generations, where we have inherited only poverty, 

 from those that are gone. I speak nothing against charity, 

 nothing against education, nothing — surely nothing — against 

 religion, but I think that the wisdom of a living generation, 

 applied to its own affairs, is preferable to the wisdom of a 

 dead generation. Now the law of primogeniture, and the 

 law which permits the accumulation of mortmain estates for 

 eleemosynary purposes, had their origin both in fear. Fear in 

 the one case, that families, or members of familes, might be 

 unable to provide for themselves ; and fear in the other case, 

 that future generations may not make proper provision for 

 charity and education. If this fear in the latter case is well 

 founded, the remedy will be ineffectual ; for a people thus lost 

 to the duties of charity and education, cannot be trusted to 

 apply funds, however obtained. On the other hand, if a people 

 are intelligently alive to these subjects, funds thus vested will 

 be unnecessary, for their available means would always be equal 

 to their wants. 



But more than this. Special evils take deep and vigorous 

 root in general wrongs, and many estates in England, and some 

 in this country, are so hampered with restrictions laid on them 

 by men who could not see the future, that they give but little 

 aid to the causes they were intended to promote. To be sure, 

 when it is no longer possible to apply the funds according to 

 the will of the donor or testator, the law comes in and fur- 

 nishes relief; but this power is very much like the power of 

 impeachment as a remedy for a bad system of government. 

 The remedy is resorted to only in aggravated cases, while the 

 great mass of the evil remains untouched. 



It is not supposed that the amount of mortmain estates will 

 affect the public welfare at present — perhaps never. But of 

 this, we cannot be certain. As land increases in value and be- 

 comes more desirable as a subject of investment, the managers 

 of these estates are likely to become purchasers of the soil. 



But there are two other causes at work, in aid of the evil 

 of which we speak. One is the desire to do good, the other is 

 the desire to be immortal. Of the desire to do good, we speak 

 with respect. Persons who have been fortunate in pecuniary 



