36 QUARTERLY JOURNAL. 



laws govern the two cases — the best implements and the best me- 

 thods will insure success — and those who adhere to old imple- 

 ments and old methods must do it at their own loss. 



EDUCATION OF THE AMERICAN FARMER. 



There is nothing remarkably strange or remarkably wrong in 

 the disposition of Americans to seek after new things, or to be 

 dissatisfied with old. Many look upon a thing with which they 

 have become familiar, as they look upon a coat which they have 

 worn for a time, and consider that on this account it is really worn 

 out and must be changed. 



In some matters this disposition to change is of little or no con- 

 sequence, and is not likely to be followed by injurious effects. 

 When we come, however, to other matters, as our institutions, this 

 disposition to change is to be looked upon with concern and ap- 

 prehension, lest on the one hand, we should injure establishments 

 which are doing all that is possible, and doing it well, or on the 

 other hand, attempt to substitute in their places those which are 

 inferior in point of utility, and more expensive in their arrange- 

 ments. In these cases some higher principle must actuate or con- 

 trol our determination or judgments than those which govern us 

 when we change our hats or our garments. Our inquiry in such 

 cases, what is the fashion 1 ought certainly to be made with a very 

 jealous eye. 



If, for instance, the fashionable or popular cry should be for 

 some great change in our educational institutions — institutions 

 which have produced great and good men, as our statesmen, our 

 judges, our leaders in trying times ; men honored for attainments 

 at home and abroad, whose discoveries in science and the arts 

 have benefited the nation — we should listen to it with great cau- 

 tion and distrust. By these remarks we do not wish to be under- 

 stood that we believe our institutions may not sometimes be im- 

 proved by introducing changes both into their organization and in 

 their courses of instruction, but we mean to be understood that 

 an old thing is not to be abandoned simply because it is old, nor a 

 new to be introduced because it is in accordance with the popular 



