176 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



bution of money is only an instrument to effect this end. By 

 what means that object is most surely to be attained, is the only 

 matter worth inquiry. Nothing is so likely to serve this end as 

 seeing and ascertaining the degree of improvement to which the 

 art has any where, at any time, or by any persons, been ad 

 vanced ; and how far, and how effectually, in our condition, we 

 may adopt the same means of progress. There is, in my opin 

 ion, nothing less worthy of a liberal mind, nor less friendly to 

 advancement in any thing valuable and useful, than a miserable 

 self-conceit, which passes often under the name of patriotism, 

 but which is a spurious metal, and a mere counterfeit of that noble 

 virtue. To value a thing because it is American, or because it 

 is English, or because it is Irish, without regard to its substantial 

 qualities, is worthy only of a child ; and a mind bent upon im 

 provement, and capable of any great progress, rises above such 

 mean prejudices ; values things according to their intrinsic merit : 

 acknowledges excellence wherever excellence exists, and seeks 

 that which is good, wherever good is to be found. We should 

 dismiss all pride in our own improvements when others have 

 gone beyond us. The advances which others have made, be 

 they who they may, should only be with us an incentive to 

 new exertions ; and so far from indulging the slightest regret that 

 they have surpassed us, if we discover that to be the fact, let us 

 rejoice in what has been accomplished, and regard all improve 

 ments, of every description, as so much gained for science or for 

 art, for general comfort or advancement, and as the common 

 property of human nature and the world. This is the truest and 

 noblest patriotism, which heartily exults in every good conferred 

 upon its own community, or its own country, and, in the spirit of 

 an enlarged philanthropy, seeks for its universal extension. To 

 a good mind, the good is not diminished by being the more 

 widely diffused. 



No benevolent and just man can look upon poor, suffering Ire 

 land, a land full of brilliant minds and generous hearts, and 

 whose eventful history is resplendent with a galaxy of the most 

 noble sacrifices and services of patriotism and philanthropy, 

 without rejoicing in any good which comes to her, or offers 

 itself in prospect. Her Agricultural Society promises to prove of 

 the highest benefit to a country, the soil of which is capable of a 

 most productive cultivation, where labor presents itself in imlim- 



