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quarter. Labor on the farm is credited per hour ; in mechan- 

 ical employments, at some specific rates. It is thought that an 

 industrious young person can give three hours per day to labor 

 without interfering with his studies. This is not, properly 

 speaking, an agricultural school ; but it would be easy to com- 

 bine with it instruction in scientific and improved agriculture, 

 and a course of agricultural experiments in a high degree ben- 

 eficial to the pupils and the community. 



Every benevolent mind must rejoice in the extension of the 

 means of knowledge among all classes, and especially among 

 those whose humble and limited circumstances would otherwise 

 render it impracticable for them to acquire an education. I do 

 not accede at all to the opinion that a poor education, meaning 

 by that an imperfect or limited education, is worse than none. 

 1 believe that any measure of education whatever is a great deal 

 better than none. You cannot let a little knowledge into the 

 mind without awakening a desire and impatience for more, and, 

 by giving any, you confer a proportionate power of acquiring 

 more. There is an advantage likewise, than which nothing is 

 more obvious in this and other departments of life, in making 

 any good that we desire to a large extent dependent upon our 

 own exertions to acquire it. The combination likewise of phys- 

 ical with intellectual effort and labor is a most wise and useful 

 union. The growth and vigor of the mind are essentially de- 

 pendent on physical development and energy. But at the same 

 time, in all our establishments for instruction, we should aim to 

 give the best education which can be reached ; and in our com- 

 munity we should not make the attainment too cheap lest we 

 should render the education inferior and much below the 

 standard to which we ought to raise it. In our attempts there- 

 fore to make, as has sometimes been attempted, these manual- 

 labor schools altogether self-supporting schools, we do more than 

 the wants of the community demand, and we impair our pow- 

 er of furnishing the best instruction and the best means of 

 knowledge. There are few young persons of either sex among 

 us, who are deserving of an education, who cannot do a great 



