204 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



clined to think, in superabundant degree ; so that the school 

 at first was invoked to supply a knowledge of books and 

 letters. But, with a vankee distrust in " book larnin " that 

 has become proverbial, it is strange that it has ever been 

 permitted to usurp the whole field of public education. In 

 the mean time, the old New England home has changed, 

 and the rich education it used to supply has largely fallen 

 away. 



In ancient mythologies, even, the fact that civilization 

 began with agriculture is clearly expressed. Osiris, the 

 great divinity of the Egyptians, is said to have led them 

 from barbarism by teaching them how to till the rich valley 

 of the Nile. The same is true in ancient Greece and Rome. 

 The divinities Demeter and Saturn performed a similar ser- 

 vice, and were deified ; but their worship degenerated, and 

 the people flocked to the cities ; and neither the works of 

 their poets and philosophers nor the examples of their kings 

 could save those ancient civilizations from decay. 



The fact that a race or tribe have taken up the work that 

 nature presents to them, have solved its problems and be- 

 come civilized in the process, is a mere matter of logical 

 sequence. Man must first subdue the wild beasts of the 

 earth, in order that his family may live in safety. He must 

 domesticate animals, and finally till the soil, in order to 

 gain support for populous communities, with their varied 

 commerce, arts and sciences. And it has seemed to me 

 that what is true for the race by logical necessity must be 

 true in a large way for the individual as well. 



Of course we should be careful about drawing too sweep- 

 ing conclusions, but recent studies of criminals have tended 

 to show that their education has been defective, in lacking 

 the civilizing influences of animal pets. The modern tramp 

 seems to be a nomad in civilized society. My own studies, 

 as far as they have been made, have indicated that here, too, 

 we have to do with a fundamental defect in education. The 

 tramp, I have found, is almost to a man a person who has 

 never planted a seed in the ground and reared a plant. He 

 has never gained a fundamental idea of the resources of 

 nature from being a producer himself. He refuses to work, 



