INTRODUCTION. 17 



diced against what they suppose to be only an innovation. In 

 this way the schools fail for want of patronage, and young 

 are deprived of their education for want of schools. 



But if we are not yet prepared to sustain agricultural 

 schools, some other plan may be available. The teachers of 

 common schools may be educated in scientific agriculture, so 

 as to be able to instruct all such pupils as are designed for 

 this pursuit, in at least the elements of the most necessary 

 branches. In this way the germs of science will be planted 

 and a taste excited, which will lead ultimately to a thorough 

 and systematic course of study. 



This plan, though limited and imperfect in its operation, has 

 the ad/antage of giving to boys, early impressions, and a 

 preference for those studies, which, if proper books are acces- 

 sible, may be pursued in connection with practice in after life. 

 A plan has been proposed for securing the agricultural educa- 

 tion of teachers, which is to establish a professorship of agri- 

 cultural science in the State Normal School. By this means 

 teachers could be educated, who would be competent to teach 

 the science to the extent required in the schools of farming 

 communities. 



Every farm should be considered a chemical laboratory, 

 and every farmer a practical chemist and philosopher : farming 

 would then be honorable and lucrative. Education would 

 give to the cultivator of the soil that dignified confidence and 

 polish which he has a right to possess, and which he now " 

 too often ridicules or envies in men in other pursuits. No- 

 reason exists why rural pursuits should alienate their votaries 

 from the rest of mankind, and give rise to those jealousies and 

 suspicions with which they look upon men of other occupa- 

 tions, or fill the mind with that dogged arrogance which is 



always the offspring of ignorance. 



' 



The profits of productive farming would, when conducted 

 2* 



