SOLON ROBINSON, 1838 93 



rudiments, the mere A. B. C.'s of useful knowledge, can 

 be learned.? Tis true this is a good foundation, but we 

 want something to incite the community to add those 

 elegant superstructures which ornament the world. We 

 should have, we can have, shall I add, we will have, in 

 every county and principal town in the United States a 

 well founded agricultural school, in which young men 

 and girls can acquire such an education as will be useful. 

 Not a piano, French, Spanish or flower daub education, 

 but one that will make the men scientific farmers and 

 mechanics, and intelligent public officers and acting legis- 

 lators, and the women fit to become the honored and 

 husband-honoring wives of such citizens — who will never 

 be ashamed to tell their daughters, that they obtained 

 the education that has ever since rendered them orna- 

 ments to society, in a manual labor school, where, by 

 their daily toil, they earned their daily acquirements. 

 But let not toil be construed slavery or drudgery, for 

 that never should be in any family, and much more in 

 a school. Useful and healthy labor, judiciously applied 

 without slavish toil, should afford all the necessary means 

 of enjoying life. If ever the false pride of labor hating, 

 and the false and foolish, and for all practical purposes 

 of life, the present prevailing system of fashionable edu- 

 cation is improved, it will be by such schools. There is 

 evidently a growing disposition towards improvement in 

 the agricultural community; but until that disposition 

 has grown to a greater maturity, the great ends and 

 objects of the pioneer friends of improvement cannot be 

 brought about. Would not the foundation of "An Ameri- 

 can Society of Agriculture," be the means of increasing 

 the little band of pioneers now in the field, until every 

 town boasted of its useful agricultural school, and every 

 legislature its majority of agriculturists, who would feel 

 proud of being dressed, and elegantly too, in American 

 silks and broadcloths? 



Such a body of men would not need to be petitioned, 

 year after year, before they would enact laws for the 



