JOSHUA R. LAWTON'S ADDRESS. 229 



learned professions, the members would be better supported than 

 they now are, the public would be better served, and labor 

 would be less taxed. The producer, and the non-producer, are 

 both victims to the existing systems. 



The great leading principle of our institutions, is to equalize 

 the benefits and enjoyments of society among all its members, 

 so far as the acts and influences of the government are concerned : 

 and while all that is valuable in the higher seminaries and pub- 

 lic charities is retained and made more useful, the common 

 schools, those fountains from which the masses draw their men- 

 tal aliment, receive their mental culture, deserve your especial 

 attention. They should be improved, their character as semina- 

 ries elevated, and the standard of instruction raised. In this way 

 that equality of condition and enjoyment, the legitimate purpose 

 of social government, will be best secured. In this way, too, the 

 wealth-producing classes, the sons and daughters of toil, will be 

 better prepared to apply their labor with intelligence, better able 

 to judge of the workings of the social system, and can more read- 

 ily and easily reach the object of their exertions — abundance, 

 abundance of the good things of this life, of the good things in 

 its enlarged and comprehensive meaning. 



The Mind and the Soil to be Improved. 



[Extract from an Address by Joshua R. Lawton Esq., at the last Fair of the 

 Berkshire Agricultural Society.] 



We are accustomed to hear much of the excellence and re- 

 spectability of the farmer's occupation ; of the collective power 

 and influence of the agricultural classes of society ; and such 

 ideas are always pleasing, and, to a certain extent, are true and 

 reasonable. But certainly they should never blind our eyes to 

 the necessity of continual improvements, nor to the actual de- 

 fects which exist in our modes of cultivation and management 

 of our farms and property. We should never be afraid to view 

 our condition and circumstances in the light of truth, for such 



