138 Duty of Educated Men. [March, 



quaintance with the principles of philosophy and chemistry. 

 They are regarded on all hands as necessary, and are therefore 

 made to hold a prominent place in all systems of education. And 

 most justly is this the case. For they are the foundation of all 

 practical arts. 



Much has been said and written of late years on the subject of 

 educating the farmer, or at least the sons of farmers in all those 

 sciences necessary to make this art take its highest place in the 

 business of life — that is, in geology, chemistry, natural philoso- 

 phy, botany, philosophy &c. All this is as impossible as the at- 

 tempt of the frog in the fable, to puff himself up to the size of an 

 ox. The fallacy of the attempt does not require argument nor ex- 

 ample to demonstrate it. let some men blind themselves to the 

 fact, and hug the project yet. 



It is impossible, because three-fouiths of our population are to 

 become tillers of the soil, and we cannot hope to procure schools, 

 nor teacheis to educate them. It is looking too far down the 

 future, to anticipate any such Eutopian success in the present state 

 of things. 



It is impossible, because there are few farmers who can afford 

 to give their sons this education. 



We repeat that all hopes of success in such a project are utter- 

 ly fallacious. More than this, such an education is %mnecessary 

 to the farmer. We do not expect any physician to be so far an 

 adept in practical chemistry, as to manui'acture his own medicines, 

 though his business consists in the applications of these medicines. 

 Carrying out such a principle a man would require to be skilled 

 in chemistiy to be a tanner, or a dyer, or a painter, or in fact to 

 engage in any art, and then the great mass of society would be 

 educated to this extent. There is no branch of art, at the pres- 

 ent day which is not dependant to a greater or less degree upon 

 the science of chemistry for its perfection, and yet the folly of 

 making any practical artizan a chemist, will be evident to every 

 one. Some directing mind, thoroughly taught in the science, is 

 capable of directing the operations of thousands in this day, when 

 the application of the principles which men have discovered, can 

 by the art of printing be made intelligible to the whole reading 

 community, although entirely ignorant of the principles them- 

 selves ; so in any grade and sort of art, the operatives learn only 

 how to apply the principles of science while they know nothing 

 of the science as such. 



Such is now, and ever must be, the case with the mass of farm- 

 ers. They are practical chemists by occupation, though they 

 never heard the name of chemistry. They apply its principles in 

 all their operations, and they need only to be shown how to apply 

 any others, to put them immediately into practice. They are ca- 



