178 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



least a class socially and intellectually inferior. The eastern 

 United States was settled not by peasants but by a middle 

 class, neither the very poor nor the very rich, — an excel- 

 lent stock of men. All northern and Avestern Europe was 

 sifted to get this seed of the nation, and from the necessities 

 of the times a great majority of our early population were 

 farmers, or at least lived a part of the time on farms. Farm- 

 ing had, in this country, a respectability which it had 

 nowhere else in the world. The large number of eminent 

 men Avho originated or were educated on farms was the 

 legitimate result of the condition of things, which has here- 

 tofore prevailed. 



The subject of the educational influences of the farm has 

 long been one of peculiar interest to me. I was born 

 and reared on a farm ; all the associations of my childhood 

 and all the traditions of m,y ancestry related to the farm ; so 

 I speak from experience in that direction. I am a teacher, 

 and have spent many years in teaching in academies and col- 

 leges which have had among their pupils both city and 

 country youth ; so 1 can speak from a teacher's experience. 

 As an American citizen, interested in the history of our be- 

 loved country, I have studied the influences which have 

 shaped its progress, and which have molded the lives of 

 many of the eminent men who have shaped its destinies and 

 made it great, and could but notice what a large proportion 

 of them had received their education on farms. As profes- 

 sor of agriculture, the influence of farm life on the intel- 

 lectual status of the people has naturally and necessarily 

 come within the province of my professional studies. 

 Lastly, and l)y no means of least importance, as fother of a 

 family of children growing up in a large city, the relative 

 value of city and country education comes very closely 

 home to me. 



When any person comes prominently forward among his 

 fellow men, — whether great in the world of finance, great 

 as an author, great as a general, great as a poet, great in the 

 realms of literature or science, great as a leader among 

 men, — the first question that comes up is. What was his 

 origin, how was he prepared for this great work, and wliat 

 has been his education ? This is a never-finished subject of 



