MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



social good was to be achieved ; yet was there 

 no ostentation in his benoficence. He acted 

 truly as if he would not let his left hand know 

 what his right hand did. 



No ! no ! his hand was opened — yet no Bound 

 Of trumpet wont before — though rich and free, 



His bounties oil, like streama beneath the ground. 

 Unseen, poured treasures sparkling to the sea." 



In founding, at his own expense, the "Van 

 Rensselaer Institute," at Troy, of which we 

 shall presently have occasion to speak more 

 particularly, he evidently anticipated and acted 

 on the convictions of an ahle writer, of very re- 

 cent date, whom we must take leave to quote, 

 even at the risk of prolonging this notice unrea- 

 Bouably; and that, not more to illustrate the 

 forecast of the great friend of agricultural im- 

 provement, who is the subject of these remarks, 

 than because, under no auspices more appro- 

 priate than under his name, could any observa- 

 tions be introduced to elucidate a subject which, 

 though every day gainmg in popularity, can in 

 no wise be exaggerated in respect of its impor- 

 tance. Let us invoke, for this quotation, the 

 particular regard of all opttlent men who ought, 

 and of benevolent men who rfo, exercise an in- 

 fluence in devising and forwarding plans for 

 educational improvement. 



" The education necessary for industrial pur- 

 suits is very generally underrated in this coun- 

 try, and from thix cavse alone springs a great 

 deal of our want of industrial knowledge. Our 

 ignorance is so great that we are even incapa- 

 ble of estimating its extent. If a boy is to be 

 sent to a. prqfrfxioit. great care is taken with his 

 education. " Literature and Science present 

 themselves to him hand in hand. A reputatioii, 

 the best passport to professional success, may, it 

 is said, be founded on school and college cha- 

 racter, and liis ambition is excited by the social 

 and political eminences which professional men 

 may attain. But if he is going to trade or agri- 

 culture, education, it is thought, would be thrown 

 awaj' on him. If he can read and write and cy- 

 pher, it is supposed to be enough. Should an 

 ambitious parent desire to give his son a good 

 education, altliough he is to be in trade, he puts 

 him through college. He devotes the best years 

 of his youth to reading Grecian poetry and Latin 

 plays • to learning by rote the dialectics of the 

 middle ages, and principles of abstract meta- 

 physics ; and awakens, after the solemnity of 

 getting his degree, to find that he is to obtain 

 his living by principles and pur.=uits to whicli 

 his education has had no reference whatsoever. 

 He finds that the safety of his property may de- 

 pend on the navigation of a sea, of which he 

 never heard wliil.st laboring for months to un- 

 derstand the geography of the Odyssey ; that 

 the mode of growth, or the chemical composition 

 of a plant, of whose exi.stence neither Greek nor 

 Roman knew, may be the means of gaining or 

 of losing fortune, and of it he has been left in ig- 

 norance ; that his daily connnercial intercourse 

 is \vith men and nations, of whose languages 

 and whose customs he is totally ignorant, ^vhilst 

 he has spent his youth in h^aming how he should 

 have spoken had he lived three thousand years 

 aco. 



' It is very well for those, who, independent 



in fortune, and devoted rather to ease than en- 

 terprise, wish to dream llirough an existence 

 which offers to them but roses they did not 

 plant, to seek in the literature of past ages, an 

 elegant and innocent occupation. Indeed, to all 

 classes the literature of present and of former 

 times, of our own and of foreign countries, pre- 

 sents a relief from the weary continuity of ac- 

 tion, which industrial progress requires. To the 

 man of business, there can be no enjoyment 

 greater than to transport himself from the anxie- 

 ties of the desk or factory, to communion with 

 the be.st lessons, ^vhich human intelligence has 

 handed down, or to obtain, within a few volumes, 

 the records of the greatest deeds, the noblest 

 struggles, and the holiest thoughts which have 

 been allowed to man. But this is not his busi- 

 ness. This knowledge is not that by which he 

 is to live, and the first object of one dependent 

 on his own exertions must he to employ them, 

 to educate his faculties specially with regard to 

 their future use in the development and the im- 

 provement of every part of whatsoever line of 

 tjusiness he embarks in. 



" The idea of there being no direct connexion 

 between trade and education, has derived sup- 

 port, with many persons, from the examples of 

 individuals, highly educated, failing entirely 

 when they engaged in trade or agriculture, 

 ^vhilst other men, of no educaiton whatsoever, 

 ha.ve been brilliantly succes.sful in industry. — 

 This argument is, however, when analysed, 

 strong on the other side. What is called educa- 

 tion by those persons, is not so, it is, on the con- 

 trary, \\orse than no education \\hatsoever. If a 

 man knows Greek and Latin, if he can expound 

 all the niceties of metaphysics, -what does it avail 

 him \\hen he proceeds to spinning cotton, or to 

 smelting iron ; quite the reverse. His habits 

 and modes of thought are at every moment 

 shocked by the rough clashing of the realities 

 on which his fate depends. His mind, accus- 

 tomed to discussions, v\hich, vshethcr right or 

 wrong, leave life as it has been before, becomes 

 appalled at the stern calculations of a problem, 

 in which his liberty, his home, his fortune is 

 involved. The man is not able for his position, 

 and he fails ; but he fails not because he was an 

 educated man, but because he was not educated 

 for his trade." 



For a fuller memoir, embracing a history of 

 his family, his education, and his public life and 

 services, to other institutions and pursuits, the 

 reader is referred to an " able and interesting " 

 obituary discourse, as it was most justly charae- 

 teri.sed when pronounced, by Hon. D. D. Bar- 

 N.iRD, at a meeting and by request, of the 

 "Albany Institute," of which, at its first 

 organization. General Van Rensselaer, then in 

 Congress at Washington, was unanimously 

 elected President, and so remained until his 

 death. 



For this discourse, to which we refer, most 

 conveniently, for facts with which his contempo- 

 raries only may now be quite familiar, we are 

 indebted to Doctor T. Romeyn Beck, who was 

 deputed, in his character as Chairman of tlie 

 Committee of An-angcment, to solicit a copy, 

 and who from personal relations to the deceased, 

 might well be designated as tVie organ for any 

 oihce, tliat might best imply their reciprocal 



