AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE, ETC. 53 



on, whether general or specific, legal, agricultural, or medical ? 

 k it to learn a routine of furms, recipes, and arbitrary rules, or is 

 to expand and discipline, and then store the mind with princi- 

 les and facts 1 



I If we wished a young man to become eminently qualified to 

 jractise law or physic, we should by no means send him to Yale 

 lollege to write out blank deeds, mortgages, &c., or to New-York 

 university to make pills. But we might with propriety send him 

 • these seats of learning for the purpose of giving him a complete 

 1(1 profound knowledge of the principles or general rules, and 

 its which constitute the basis of all intelligent practice in either 

 ' these professions. Precisely the same rule applies to an agri- 

 iltural education. Take the young man whose mind has been 

 ■vcloped and disciplined by a thorough study of the elementary 

 anches of education, and teach him the principles or laws which 

 vein the decay or decomposition of vegetable and animal mat- 

 is, for example, and if he possess an ordinary share of common 

 i|nse he will never be at a loss to find some mode of applying 

 osc laws to the practice of preparing barn-yard manure. These 

 rts teach him that in all such cases much gaseous matter is form- 

 ( which must be retained by some absorbent ; also that caloric 

 < heat is developed which must not be allowed to rise too high ; 

 III finally that the most valuable products are soluble in water, 

 al therefore liable to be washed away and lost by rains, &c. 

 nd hence he will not need a model farm to teach him that a cover 

 ( some kind is necessary for the protection of his manure. But 

 \iether that protection shall be a barn cellar, or a shed, must de- 

 jnd on the situation of himself and his barn. We believe one of 

 t3 greatest errors in the present popular idea of education is, that 

 iinust be practical, meaning thereby that it must consist in the 

 s.dy of such things only as are directly reducible to practice in 

 t ■ ordinary pursuits of life. Such an education is directly the 

 rj'erse of practical, in any proper acceptation of that term. It 

 Djy indeed make a man of prescribed rules, and forms, and routine ; 

 t.j mere creature of circumstances. 

 , But the really practical man, is one who makes rules, forms, 

 al circumstances his creatures, and himself their master, to 

 c inge and mould them according to his will. To do this he 

 . ttjst be educated to think: and to be capable of deep, continuous 



