AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 193 



Indeed, I have yet to learn that the acquisition of knowledge 

 can ever be otherwise than favorable to virtue ; or that what 

 ever tends to enlarge and improve the mind does not, in an 

 equal degree, tend to render character more valuable, moral 

 obligations more authoritative, and inspire and strengthen that 

 self-respect which is among the most powerful instruments and 

 securities of virtue. 



If I should be asked, now, What has all this to do with agri 

 culture ? I answer, Much every way. It will be found, with 

 respect to agriculture, what is true in reference to every other 

 art, that its proper exercise, and all the improvements which it 

 has received, have been the effects of the application of mind to 

 the subject ; in other words, of inquiry, observation, knowledge, 

 and especially the results of intelligent experience. Who does 

 not know the difference between a stupid and an intelligent 

 laborer; between a man scarcely raised above the brute animal 

 which he drives, and a man whose faculties are all awake, and 

 who is constantly upon the alert to discover and adopt the best 

 mode of executing the task which he has undertaken : between 

 a beast altogether the creature of instinct, or a mere machine, 

 moving only as it is impelled, and unable to correct its own 

 errors, and a thinking, knowing, reasoning animal, always search 

 ing for the right way, making all his actions subservient to his 

 judgment, and gathering continual accessions of power and 

 facility of action from his own and the experience of others ? 

 Every one will admit that the more intelligence, the more skill, 

 the more knowledge, a man has, the better is he qualified, other 

 things being equal, for the management of a farm. It holds 

 equally true that the more intelligence, the more skill, the more 

 knowledge, a laborer has, the better is he qualified to assist in 

 that management, and to perform the part which belongs to him 

 in the working of the whole machinery. 



I believe I may safely say, that a New England laborer ac 

 complishes in the same time much more than an English 

 laborer ; and this circumstance, in respect to agriculture, and 

 especially in some of the manufacturing and mechanic arts, 

 which more demand the exercise of the mind than the ordi 

 nary operations of husbandry, is one among other circumstances 

 which enable us to come in successful competition with the 

 labor of Europe, so very inferior in its cost. I cannot say they 

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