SOCIAL POSITION OF THE FARMING CLASS. 471 



the position in society which they ought to fill, and 

 hence no farmer brings up his son to his own business 

 if he can do what he thinks better for him. He sends 

 him rather to a store, or into an office, and pushes him 

 on, if he can, in these rather than in his own line. By 

 so doing, he expects him not only to attain to a higher 

 social position than that which is held by the farmer, 

 but also to make more money in the same time than can 

 now be done by farming. 



It may be difficult exactly to say why, and yet in 

 nearly the whole of North America which I have gone 

 through, from Halifax to Buffalo, wherever there is a 

 mixed population, the social inferiority of the farming 

 class is everywhere spoken of. Around the large towns, 

 of course, a superior section of this class is found ; but in 

 really rural districts some small portions of Massa 

 chusetts, and some larger ones of western New York, are 

 the only places which have impressed themselves upon 

 my mind as being possessed and cultivated by a race of 

 small proprietors who are fit to take social rank with 

 their fellow-countrymen of other pursuits and profes 

 sions. 



This difference might be in a great measure removed 

 by a higher education, and a more full development of 

 the intellectual faculties through instruction ; but it is a 

 singular fact, that here, as at home, those who have 

 most opposed the efforts made to provide special educa 

 tion for the agricultural classes, have been these very 

 classes themselves, or their representatives in the Legis 

 lature of the several States. I have mentioned in a 

 previous chapter, that the Legislature of New York pro 

 poses to establish an agricultural college, on a scale 

 worthy of the Empire State ; and that it is the indiffer 

 ence of the agricultural members which has delayed it 

 from being sooner carried into operation. In the Legis 

 lature of Massachusetts, a similar proposal has been made, 



