SOLON ROBINSON, 1841 229 



a life of usefulness? Your exertions to improve your 

 stock and your farms are praiseworthy. Does it ever 

 occur to our minds that we might improve ourselves? 

 Is it not necessary for us to try to improve our system 

 of education? Cannot your Society engraft a model 

 school upon your proposed model farm? Surely it is a 

 subject worthy of your serious consideration. 



Cannot we improve the present taste and fashion of 

 society? Here let me read a short extract from a journal 

 called the "New York Mechanic." 



"Ma, why were those men turned out of the assembly 

 room last night? 



"Because, my dear, they belong to the lower class : the 

 one being a farmer, and the other a mechanic. 



"But ma, I thought the farmers were the most useful 

 people in the world, and that all other people were de- 

 pendent on them for the means of living. 



"True, my child, they are useful people, but they have 

 to work for a living, and the assembly was composed of 

 the rich, or, at least fashionable people who do not have 

 to work. And besides, farmers are not in general so 

 refined in their manners, as the lawyers and merchants. 



"But why was the mechanic turned out seeing he was 

 very polite and well-dressed. 



"It was for the reason that he belongs to the lower 

 class, and works for a living as I mentioned before. 



"But I suppose, Ma, that nearly all the articles of 

 which their splendid supper was composed, were pro- 

 cured from the farmers; and I am sure that nearly 

 every thing else which they had in the hall, the furniture, 

 decorations, and even the raiment of the company, and 

 the hall itself in which they danced, was produced by 

 mechanics. If, then, the first class of people are so en- 

 tirely dependant on the farmers and mechanics, with 

 what propriety can they set themselves up so much above 

 them, and exclude them from their society? 



"That, my dear child, is a privilege which the rich and 

 fashionable have always enjoyed from time immemorial, 



