EDUCATION OF THE FARMER. 229 



Make our schools what they ought to be. Place them under the 

 direction of competent instructors. Have the branches now taught 

 in them taught philosophically-taught as they should bo. Intro- 

 duce into them other necessary studies-studies which will still 

 : further tram and discipline the intellect. Add to these those which 

 will cultivate the taste. Introduce moral culture, and, finally, 

 teach young republicans political science-the science of govern- 

 ment, political economy, and political ethics. All these are more 

 important to the man and the citizen, particularly the citizen of a 

 republic, than the knowledge of any or all arts or handicrafts. 

 , Ihus I answer the question propounded in the preceding part of 

 this article-" whether the next study to be engrafted on the pre- 

 ^sent course of instruction in our schools, should be agriculture? 

 Ij But when we have formed the ma7i, it is assuredly well to form 

 and instruct the work-man. After the farmer has attained the 

 sound thorough education, e-ductive and in-ductive, above hinted 

 at, It certainly behooves him to acquire the science of his own art 

 How shall this be done ? Shall the study of agriculture be en- 

 grafted on the course of common school education 1 Not yet • per- 

 haps never. It will take a long period to bring teachers and schools 

 |in a ht condition to teach, or to learn it, without sacrificing that 

 [Which is more important. More erudition than is now contained 

 ,m our common schools, would be necessary to understand even 

 the terms of Liebig, Boussaingault, Paen, &c. Even the'common, 

 the necessary elementary branches now taught in ther^, are not 

 generally well taught. They are taught by rote, as the parrot is 

 made to repeat its phrases. If we would play the part of true re- 

 formers, and not of men run away with by a hobby, let us beo-in 

 at the foundation. In spite of those swelling eulogiums which it 

 [sthe fashion of Executives and Heads of Departments to lavish 

 g this branch of our polity, he who has made himself familiar 

 i^th the schools in any extended section of our country, in the 

 < by places" as well as the « high places," cannot but feel the 

 feed, the deplorable need of reform. Scarcely a tithe of the scho- 

 ars who receive their only education (so far as schools are con- 

 ■erned,) from our common schools, ultimately leave those institu- 

 lons any thing like thorough proficients, even in the branches now 

 ommonly taught in them, viz : reading, spelling, writing, geo- 



