438 



In every institution therefore for liberal and general educa- 

 tion, these objects should be prominent. They are at least en- 

 titled to their place in the system. In every university there 

 should be for example a professor of commerce and trade, em- 

 bracing in his instructions all the subjects of trade, all the cus- 

 toms and laws of trade throughout the world, the subjects of 

 currency, banking, and exchange and the arts of ship-building, 

 equipment, and navigation. There should be likewise a pro- 

 fessor of manufactures, who should give instruction in the me- 

 chanic arts and inventions, in the various machinery employed 

 in these arts, and in the history of their condition and prog- 

 ress. There should be likewise a professor of agriculture, 

 whose department should embrace every department of this 

 great art, with the kindred sciences of botany, zoology and 

 chemistry, as far as they bear upon it. The university could 

 not establish more useful courses of instruction. In regard to 

 this latter subject many of our young men, who are graduated 

 with a fair classical reputation, seem hardly to have discovered 

 that the bread which feeds them does not come as the manna 

 did to the ancient Israelites. 



Count Rumford, in 1815, left a considerable property to 

 Harvard University, for an institution which should teach '• by 

 regular courses of academical and public lectures, accompanied 

 with proper experiments, the utility of the physical and mathe- 

 matical sciences for the improvement of the useful arts and for 

 the extension of the industry, prosperity, happiness, and well- 

 being of society." Two competent professors have in succes- 

 sion filled the chair of this department ; and I can only express 

 my wish that the course of instruction under it were more 

 widely extended and its advantages more diffused. 



An agricultural department is still wanting. In the univer- 

 sity of Edinburgh, such a department has been filled by an 

 accomplished professor, who has given to the agricultural com- 

 munity one of the best books on practical agriculture extant 





* Low's Practical Agriculture. 



