70 REPORT OF THE 



introduce manual labour into literary schools, it is courteous 

 that literature and science should requite the civility, by asso 

 ciating with the inmates of schools of labour. 



&quot; Agricultural schools, although of modern date, have never 

 theless been established in most of the states of Europe, and 

 their utility has been fully demonstrated. Who has not heard 

 of the school of Fellenburgh, at Hoffwyl, or of Von Thayer, 

 at Moegelin to which young men are sent from every part 

 of Europe, and even from America ? In France and Prussia, 

 agricultural schools have been founded and maintained by the 

 governments. If they are found to be beneficial, and worthy 

 of governmental support, in countries where power is vested in 

 the few, how much more salutary must they prove here 

 where our institutions receive the impress of their character 

 from the many, and where the perpetuity of these institutions 

 depends emphatically upon the intelligence and virtue of the 

 agricultural population. Despotism will never flourish in 

 American soil, but through the ignorance, and, we may say, 

 consequent depravity of its cultivators. 



&quot; Your committee recall to recollection, with feelings of pride, 

 the munificent benefactions of the Legislature, to advance the 

 literary character of our State ; and the fact, that compara 

 tively nothing has been done, legislatively, to improve our 

 agriculture, which employs five-sixths of our population, can 

 be ascribed to the fact, that nothing has been asked for 

 nothing thought of. Our public colleges and academies, for 

 literary instruction, are numerous and respectable. They 

 meet our eye in almost every village. But where are our 

 public schools of labour ? Where is the head taught to help 

 the hands, in the business which creates wealth, and which is 

 the grand source of individual and national prosperity and 

 happiness ? Our literary and professional schools have been 

 reared up and sustained by the expenditure of more than two 

 millions of dollars from the public treasury, and they continue 

 to share liberally of the public bounty. It will not, however, 

 be denied, that the benefits which they dispense are altogether 

 partial, that the rank and file of society, destined by heaven 

 to become the conservators of civil liberty, are virtually denied 

 a participation in the science and knowledge, in the means 



