4 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 



As a matter of fact, farmers as a class have but begun the discussion of the question of 

 Sallust. A few in each community think and read, a few either know the sciences on 

 which agriculture depends or deplore their ignorance, a few are worthy successors of those 

 Roman farmers of the soil, to whom the glebe, glad to be worked by men wearing civic or 

 military crowns, yielded a large return. 



But the prevalent opinion is that farming requires little of the knowledge to be had in the 

 schools. " ' Only a Farmer' expresses with all sufficient accuracy the relative position of 

 farmers, not their necessary, but their actual position. The occupation which should be a 

 liberal profession is a most illiberal labor."* 



ESPECIAL NEED OF EDUCATION. 



There is especial need of educational work for farmers. Little comparatively has been 

 done for them. A young man may choose out of hundreds of schools in which to study law 

 or medicine, or the higher mathematics, or Greek and Latin. In these branches teachers 

 and text books abound. Schools of civil engineering, even of mechanical engineering and 

 mining abound, if we take account of the comparative fewness of the classes for which they 

 exist. In agriculture here and there a school or a professorship struggles against deep-set- 

 tled prejudices of community, and the inherited axioms of liberal education. 



Again, fanners are isolated, there is not that sharp action of mind upon mind which dis- 

 ciplines to quick perception and logical thought the artisans of a manufacturing city. In- 

 formation, improvements, reach them more slowly than other industrial classes. Again, 

 mechanical works, making of railways, mining, manufactures, employ the masses of laborers 

 under a skilled master, whose education in a sense suffices for all, while in agriculture, the 

 advance depends apon the general progress of the masses themselves. 



Besides, the business of a farmer is highly complicated as compared with that of a carpen- 

 ter, a miller, a manufacturer. An apprenticeship that would fit a young man to compete 

 with co-laborers in most trades would go but little way in fitting him to be a good farmer. 

 Machinery is made according to fixed principles of action, that are simple and to a great ex- 

 tent known. Mechanics is so exact as to go by the name of applied mathematics. It is not 

 so with the farmer's business. Quite a body of empirical rules exist ; but underlying prin- 

 ciples that would enable one to vary his practice from a knowledge of the relations of cause 

 and effect are to a great extent wanting. Until these principles are ascertained, agriculture 

 will be among the arts that have no fixed foundations in science. " To know well," says 

 Lord Bacon, " is to understand causes." Liebig says "There is no profession which for its 

 successful practice requires a larger extent of knowledge than agriculture, and none in which 

 the actual ignorance is greater." Of all the pursuits of man, says Carey in his" Social 

 Science," vol. 2, p. 26, " agriculture is the one requiring the highest degree of knowledge." 

 The processes of nature in the production of plants and animals are hidden ; plans cannot 

 be made, giving in their execution exact predicted results, as a machinist can do. The 

 routine found good in one place requires modification with the variations of many circum- 

 stances in another. It would certainly seem, therefore, that in no business would knowledge 

 and mental discipline be of more service. 



When a farmer understands the breeding and care of his cattle and the raising of his crops, 

 there is other knowledge needful still. His business has wide relations to the affairs of other 

 men. These he needs to understand. He should be acquainted with the laws of transpor- 

 tation, of trade, and of money. Ex-Gov. Seymour, of New York, in a late visit to the Agri- 

 cultural College, told me that the Cheese Association of his place find it to their profit to 

 have bulletins regarding the markets direct from London. In respect to this needed know- 

 ledge of political economy, farmers as a class are lacking. They are too apt to rest content 

 with what they are told when they come to market, and too apt to plan with reference to 

 the last year's profits only to rest content in intellectual isolation. 



Farmers as a class do not take the social and political rank that their numbers and import- 

 ance entitle them to. There are about 6,000,000 persons engaged in agriculture in the 

 United States. The census gives 41,106 lawyers. And yet Mr. Perry, the able professor of 

 political economy of Williams' College, is reported in the papers to have said publicly that 

 he could point out one hundred of those lawyers who have exerted more political influence 

 in the State and nation than all the 6,000,000 farmers have done. 



Consideration cannot be forced ; it must be the outcome of genuine respect. Legislation 

 cannot reach this case of social and political standing ; education can. 



There is another drawback to the farmers' business which education only can reach. The 

 sons of farmers who acquire an education forsake the calling. The other occupations of life 

 present more alluring prizes, great wealth, honor, and influence. 



Were it not that education has generally meant abandonment of the farm, that an educa- 

 tion which does not lead to other business is generally regarded, and by farmers themselves 



'"Gail Hamilton's "Glorying in the Good," Atlantic Monthly, July, 1864. 



