OPPOSITION TO AN AGEICULTURAL COLLEGE. 281 



It appears at first sight singular, that among the 

 farmers of the Assembly the strongest opponents of the 

 measure should have sprung up. As in other countries, 

 so even here where the schools and periodicals are so 

 numerous, and where, therefore, so many more chinks 

 are open, through which daylight may break in upon 

 the minds of the rural population the farmers are 

 averse to change, and more averse still to the opinion 

 that they are not already wise enough for all they have 

 to do. To provide more instruction for my son, in 

 regard to the business I myself follow, is to acknowledge 

 my own want of information, and this is a degree of 

 humility which the mass of the people cannot induce 

 themselves to exhibit. Thus, while the lawyers, and 

 nearly all the other classes of men in the Legislature, 

 are willing to vote the public money with a view to the 

 future improvement of the staple interest of the State, 

 many of the farmers themselves refuse to accept the 

 grant as a gift to their class, on the ground that the 

 knowledge to be given in the school is not required, and 

 that its application to the soil would be of doubtful 

 benefit. 



In a country where it is part of the democratic faith, 

 that every man is fitted to fill any public office without 

 special instruction, and where, as a practical consequence, 

 the quack doctor and the educated physician receive 

 equal encouragement in their professional pursuits, we 

 might ascribe to this general sentiment of the people, the 

 opposition of the rural classes to the special education of 

 their sons in the branches of knowledge which throw 

 light upon the art by which they are to live. But the 

 opposition of a similar kind which has been, in so many 

 ways and on so many occasions, exhibited among our 

 selves, is a proof that there is something in the habit of 

 mind which is common to the cultivators of both sides of 

 the Atlantic, which makes them difficult to convince that 



