STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 61 



done for the education of every class of society, under the soft 

 and benign influence of a free government, and that her motto 

 is, i Knowledge is wealth. 



&quot;In her enterprise, by facilitating intercourse between the 

 different sections of her State and the waters of the Atlantic, 

 she is as unrivalled in conception as she has been successful in 

 execution. Not content with this, it is an admitted fact, and 

 worthy of all honour, that she has carried into effect the most 

 perfect prison discipline in the world ; and we have already 

 witnessed the wise and the humane of Europe resorting to her 

 shores to ascertain the art of subduing the rebellious passions 

 of the worst of our race, without the aid of those sanguinary 

 punishments which have so long disgraced the Old World. 



&quot; Thus she has expended millions of her money, and already 

 has she erected a monument to the wisdom of her statesmen, 

 more durable than any ever dedicated to the victor of a thou 

 sand fields. 



&quot; Who are they who have contributed so freely, so gene 

 rously to expenditures calculated to immortalize the State, 

 and to establish its glory on so pure a foundation ? Mainly 

 the farmers of your country, the yeomen of the land, the tillers 

 of the soil. Freely have they given, and joyfully have they 

 paid, and most rich results have been the consequence of their 

 enlightened liberality. 



&quot; Is it then unfair to ask, what has been done by the legis 

 lature for a class of its citizens so numerous, virtuous, and 

 meritorious? The stranger, when he sojourns in our land, 

 and views all that has been done for the cause of science, for 

 education in the higher branches of literature, for your com 

 mon schools, for the reformation and punishment of crimes on 

 a scale superior to any State in Europe, naturally enquires : 

 Show me your agricultural school. You are essentially an 

 agricultural people ; a class of society who have aided so liber 

 ally to the institutions of your State, must have received the 

 constant and peculiar care of legislative protection and pa 

 tronage, by forming their minds, their habits and their tem 

 pers to become the patrons of the noble monuments already 

 erected, and which, while they shed lustre on our State, have 

 placed her first among her sisters in the Union. 



