228 QUARTERLY JOURNAL. 



tions even for mental culture. But which is of the most impor- 

 tance, in the economy even of this world, the man or the work- 

 man — the mind or the purse 1 Do we live only to go unceasingly 

 through one constantly recurring round of labor, like the miserable 

 beast in the bark-mill, and are we to be trained only beast-like to 

 perform that duty well, or do we live to enjoy those higher attri- 

 bates of intellect which has allowed us to ascend to a position 

 " but a little lower than the angels !" 



Most fully do I concur with the editor of the Quarterly Journal, 

 that the lawyer, the mechanic, and the farmer, all require a similar 

 elementary training in kind — and to this I would be glad to add, 

 in degree. The same preparatory discipline is requisite to give to 

 the farmer or mechanic a vigorous and well balanced mind, that is 

 to give it to the lawyer or clergyman. And is it less necessary *? 

 Is any farmer prepared to subscribe to the humiliating doctrine 

 that education, beyond that necessary to fit him to labor advanta- 

 geously, and transact business decently, is of no avail to him — thatij 

 it is his business to go through life uninstructed only in his handi- 

 craft, a sort of a food-producing machine for another class, who 

 are to think for him — to legislate for him — in short, to use him as 

 a voluntary helot — a sort of upper or privileged beast of burthen ? 

 If there is such a farmer, he deserves to occupy the position 

 which his downward aspirations so grovellingly claim ! 



Why shall not the farmer's habitation be the abode of taste and 

 intelligence % Why shall not Bacon and Shakspeare come and 

 converse with him 1 Why shall not history and poesy and sci- 

 ence, shed the informing and refining influence over his domestic 

 circle 1 Are these Utopian dreams ? The farmer has but to will 

 it so, to have it so ! He is the tax-payer — he can he the legislch 

 for I 



But whether it is by legislation, or other means, that our schools 

 are to be brought to a condition to confer such a culture on the 

 farmer, the first step must be to add to instead of subtracting from 

 his mental culture — to enlarge, instead of diminishing his course 

 of disciplinary studies — to build up and extend and improve insti- 

 tutions having such culture and discipline for their object, instead 

 of overthrowing them in quest of that pseudo utility which places 

 dollars and cents before intellect — ^before the dignity of human 

 nature. 



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