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knowledge derived, not from the relations of others, but 

 from their own actual observations. Add to this the 

 changes of residence produced by an unexampled peace- 

 ful migration; see hundreds of thousands of hardy emi- 

 grants leaving the old world for the shores of America 

 or far distant Australia ; witness the multitudes in our 

 own country who annually remove from the older 

 to the newer States, or yet newer Territories ; and reflect 

 that each of these emigrants carries to his new home 

 something of the knowledge, both theoretical and prac- 

 ical, of the home he left, and you will have some idea of 

 the vast diffusion of intelligence that necessarily results 

 from these causes. Ancient history presents no such 

 spectacle, nor anything approaching it; for though we 

 read of vast migrations stretching from the mountains 

 and plains of Asia to the shores of the Mediterranean 

 and the Atlantic, the story is always the same it is of 

 war and of conquest, of havoc and of destruction, of the 

 overthrow of civilization and the spread of barbarism, 

 and not of the diffusion of knowledge, the progress of 

 arts and of science, the improvement of the earth and 

 its greater yield, the bettered condition of the human 

 race and the spread of peace and good will among men. 

 But it was not in remote times alone that the want of 

 intercourse among the cultivators of the soil was serious- 

 ly felt. It is felt even to this day, and was experienced 

 in a far greater degree as late as fifty years ago. In an 

 address delivered in 1869, Professor Buckland, said: 



"I can remember the time when large numbers of Eng- 

 lish farmers seldom went beyond the boundary of their 

 own county ; some even hardly passed the limits of 

 their own or the adjoining parish. What a change 

 has been effected since the introduction of the railway ? 

 Farmers may now be seen travelling hundreds of miles 

 to an exhibition, or in company as members of a club 

 paying periodic visits to inspect the practices of distin- 

 guished individuals of their craft in differents parts of 



