218 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



beneficent effects must presently be seen in alleviating the 

 indescribable amount of wretchedness under which this beau 

 tiful country and fine-spirited people have been so long crushed 

 to the earth a wretchedness which, to be understood, must 

 be seen. 



5. SCHOOL AT EAL1NG. 



An establishment of a somewhat similar character exists in 

 England, perhaps many more than one, which I regret that 

 accident merely has prevented my visiting. I refer to the school 

 at Baling, near London, and I believe there are others, supported 

 by a noble woman, full of benevolence, Lady Noel Byron. At 

 this school, three hours a day are devoted to labor on the farm ; 

 and in addition to instruction in cultivating the soil, the boys 

 are taught to perform all the other operations necessary upon it, 

 such as carpenter work, bricklaying, glazing, &c. Each of the 

 boys has a small plot of ground for his own cultivation, from 

 which he derives a certain profit ; and some of them had a pound 

 or two in the Savings Bank at the end of the year. Such is the 

 success of this institution, that there are now fifty applicants 

 wishing to be received on the farm as boarders. 



The principal objection suggested against the devotion of a 

 portion of the day to agricultural labor at a place of education, 

 is, that it would interfere with the progress of their studies. It 

 is extraordinary to find intelligent minds overlooking the inti 

 mate relation between physical and intellectual health. There 

 can be no doubt that a man will perform more intellectual labor, 

 who devotes a portion, and not a small portion, of every day to 

 healthful physical exertion, than the man who, neglecting such 

 exertion, abandons himself in his study exclusively to his books. 

 I am quite aware that many occupations, of a mechanical or a 

 commercial nature, may so exclusively occupy the mind as to 

 unfit it for scientific pursuits ; but agricultural labors, quiet in 

 their nature, and carried on in the open air, when pursued with 

 moderation, so far from fatiguing, refresh and invigorate the 

 mind, and prepare it for the more successful application to 

 pursuits exclusively intellectual. The laboratory of nature, open 

 always to the laboring farmer, is itself a school of philosophy to 

 the intelligent, reflecting, and inquiring mind, and presents con- 



