CULTURE AND SOCIAL POSITION. 45 



acknowledged on all hands to be the backbone of community — 

 the substratum of all society. The occupation of agriculture 

 lies at the foundation of all other industrial pursuits. Mechan- 

 ics, manufactures and commerce would find no material to work 

 upon, did not agriculture furnish it ? It is the primeval occu- 

 pation of man, and the favorite pursuit of the wise and good 

 from Adam down to the present time, and if we do not hold the 

 social position to which we think we are entitled, let us not 

 blame society, but rather say with Cassius, — 



*' The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 

 But in ourselves that we are underlings." 



To point out some means of elevating the character and 

 improving the social position of the farmer, is my object on this 

 occasion. 



In the first place, the prevalent notion that farming is merely 

 a practical art to be studied in the barn and field, must be 

 discarded. It is true of agriculture as of every other art, that 

 science without practice sometimes leads astray, and practice 

 without science never attains to leadership. It is only when 

 theory and practice are combined that the highest success may 

 be expected. It is said that a distinguished professor of mathe 

 matics in a college not far distant from here, who had taught 

 his classes year after year the art of navigation, was once cross- 

 ing the Atlantic and desired one day to heave the log and keep 

 the course and distance of the ship. The reckonings were 

 accordingly intrusted for a time in his hands, and as might 

 have been expected, were not very accurately kept, though the 

 sky was clear and the wind moderate. This is an example of 

 science without practice. But would the result have been 

 more satisfactory had a common sailor, accustomed all his days 

 to the practical details of navigation, but unacquainted with the 

 science, been intrusted with the command of the ship ? It is 

 the skillful captain alone, who understands not only the prac- 

 tical handling of the ropes, but also the laws of navigation, to 

 whom we can safely trust our lives and property on the ocean. 

 If his mathematical tables are lost, the scientific commander 

 can make new ones. If his needle loses its polarity he can 

 apply his magnet and remedy the defect. In his own brains he 

 has resources for every emergency, to which the ignorant sailor 



