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EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



always execute their work as well. Certainly, in ploughing and 

 draining, our operations are altogether inferior to what is done in 

 England, where, in the perfection with which these matters are 

 executed, nothing more seems to me either attainable or desira 

 ble. But this arises from several causes ; the more we have to 

 do compared with the number of hands we have to accomplish 

 it ; the extent to which a system of division of labor is carried 

 in England, so that particular individuals are accustomed to do 

 only particular things, and consequently acquire a precision and 

 facility of operation, which such exact attention and long-con 

 tinued practice are sure to give, attended with an almost utter 

 disqualification for any other branches of labor. In many de 

 partments and operations of husbandry, this exactness is not 

 necessary, though in many I am ready to admit its utility ; but 

 in the amount of work which an American laborer will accom 

 plish in a given time, and in the facility with which he turns 

 from one species of labor to another, he is far before an English 

 laborer. This, I believe, is, in a great degree, owing to the dif 

 ference in their minds; the one being educated, the other uned 

 ucated ; the one being accustomed to depend upon himself, to 

 inquire, to reflect, to observe, to experiment ; the other scarcely 

 exercising his mind at all more than the cattle which he -drives, 

 and accustomed to move in the line, and that only, which has 

 been marked out for him. I hold that education, in every con 

 dition of life, is a great good. It sometimes gives facilities for 

 particular crimes, of which, otherwise, men would have been 

 incapable ; but the viciousness of these men would have shown 

 itself in some other form. It is in no sense attributable to their 

 education. I believe, as much as I live, that every advance in 

 the cultivation and improvement of the mind is an incentive 

 and an auxiliary to good conduct ; and although an education 

 purely intellectual falls far short of the beneficial influences 

 which it might yield, when the moral sentiments are cultivated 

 conjointly with the intellectual, yet am I perfectly assured, that 

 every quickening or cultivation of the mental faculties, every 

 thing which contributes, in any measure or degree, to raise man 

 above a mere machine, or a mere animal, is so far positive good 

 positive good for his efficiency as a laborer, and for his happiness 

 and moral well-being as a man. I am afraid I shall be thought 

 to dwell too long on this subject ; but I have felt such a burning 



