856 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



of bondage from which the free people of New England would 

 shrink. These officials do not spring from, nor are they respon- 

 sible to, the people. The government appoints the police, the 

 clergy, the school-master, and, in fact, the most petty village 

 official, who is bound to think and* act as the government 

 dictates, or submit to loss of office, and with it loss of bread. 

 The whole system of social organization and of education is 

 eminently military. The so much boasted system of education 

 is designed to make an efficient military. 



With us every thing springs ultimately from the people. 

 Even judges and other officials appointed by the executive, for 

 the time being, must be regarded as coming indirectly from the 

 people, since those who appoint them are elected by the people. 

 Rotation in office is the principle, carried, perhaps, too far, and 

 to the public detriment, with us ; but better, infinitely better, 

 than the office for life system in all parts of Germany. The 

 whole system is calculated to keep the people always children, 

 to banish all independence of action and freedom of thought. 

 Every thing moves by routine. Such a thing as the town meet- 

 ing for deliberation upon the management of local and muni- 

 cipal affairs, in New England, so important, as educating the 

 people in their own government, is not known in any part of 

 Germany, nor, I think, in any part of the continent, unless it 

 be in the free cantons and communes of Switzerland. 



The system of minute division of lands exists, therefore, in 

 Prussia, and most otlier parts of Germany, as the result of the 

 revolution, attended with so much bloodshed, in France ; accom- 

 plished so silently, and by the edict of the king, in Prussia, and 

 soon imitated in the other kingdoms and principalities of 

 Germany. 



The agriculture of Prussia, as compared with the rest of 

 Europe, is not in so advanced a state as 1 had expected to find 

 it ; and the condition of things just alluded to may serve, in 

 part, to exi)lain the reason. There can be no doubt that 

 England takes the first rank, of all the European nations, in 

 the advancement of her agriculture and the production of food 

 for the support of man. After her come Belgium, Holland, 

 Switzerland, Lombardy, Saxony, and Bohemia. In the third 

 rank comes France, where so much has been done to develop 

 the sciences on which an intelligent knowledire of agriculture 



