50 QUARTERLY JOURNAL, 



AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE, EDUCATION, &c- 



BY N. 3. DAV13. ' . 

 i 



The present i\^e is generally characterized as one of great, nay 



of unparalleled progress in every thing pertaining to man's phy^i 



cal, moral, and intellectual condition. For while space and tif 



are alike robbed of their ancient powers, by the steam engine aiif 



the electric telegraph ; the almost numberless schemes for socw 



reorganization, and the quite numberless plans for universal into 



lectual cultivation and education, each and all represented by the 



respeciive advocates as capable of elevating the whole race, aj) 



speedily ushering in the millennial dawn with all its resplendfei 



glorits, would almost make us forget that more than four thousaj 



convulsive, struggling, heaving, toilsome years have rolled aw> 



since man began his career on earth, and still three-quarters of t|i 



earth is covered with darkness, moral, physical and intellectiu 



darker even than at the beginnir g ; while of the inhabitants oft 



remaining quarter, not one-fourth have ever caught even a glii 



mering ray from the light of science, or a sip from the Pierw 



spring. And yet this tact, plain and palpable as it is, shoi 



make us hesitate and reflect, before we attach too much importam 



or look too sanguincly to the results of any of the thousa 



schemes for ameliorating the condiiion of mankind. We woi 



not .leny our faith in human progress; neither would we sa) 



discouraging word to the warm-hearted philanthropist, wlio,in 1 



ardor of his zeal, would regenerate a world in a day, if he,. 1: 



Archimedes, could only find a fulcrum on which to rest his lev 



But we would look at the past and learn to be h\imble. 



We acknowledge that the present is, in a moral and physi 

 point of view, an age of convulsion, innovation and chmge, 

 not of improvement. It is a time when, on the other side of 

 Atlantic, the deep, and ever deepening tones of misery from Ic 

 oppresseil humanity, are rising with volcanic power, beneath i 

 totte-ing towers of regal tyranny, and demanding redress. 



And in our own boasted land, there seems to be a spirit of n 

 le^s innovation in all the relations of man, which portends 

 near approach of an important era in the history of our race. J 



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