THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



641 



and to think that I perceive evidences of some- 

 thing like improvement. Let us earnestly en- 

 deavor to make these much more manilest. We 

 have lost perhaps our best example oT sniin; and 

 judicious manntrement, in every department of 

 his business. You will readily perceive that I 

 QJIude to our much valued and lamented friend, 

 the late Edmund Eggieston. His example should 

 long be remembered and imitated. 



But let us introduce our traveller to the people. 

 If he be fit to make observations at all, he has 

 already observed, that success in agriculture, or 

 indeed any thing else, depends much more upon 

 them, as agents, than upon any thing on which 

 they may operate. 



. Permit me to premise, that whatever reflections 

 may be made, in relation to the young, arises from 

 no unkind leeling towards them, but Irom a deep 

 and mournful conviction, that their faults are pro- 

 duced, mainly, by errors of their parents and 

 teachers, and errors in public sentiment. 



The time was, when our boys were drilled in 

 the rudiments of education, by sound scholars 

 among the Episcopal clergy. Afterwards, by well 

 qualified clergymen of other denominations. — 

 These gentlemen rigidly inculcated on their pu- 

 pils, that while they were boys, they certainly 

 were not men, and, when necessary, they made 

 them Bensihly jfeel the truth of this. The imfires- 

 sion was so deep, that even after they became 

 men, they couk||_hardly believe it. But, the con- 

 viction of the truth, in this instance, had a much 

 better foundation in reality than it would, had it 

 been assumed in advance of the fact. 



(n more modern times, somebody discovered 

 that the clergy had too much important business 

 to occupy every moment of their time, to spend 

 any part of it in the education of youth ; even 

 before any safe and well adjusted scheme for 

 their education could be devised. 



Since this discovery, parents and teachers have 

 got together by advertisement, and every oilier 

 conceivable mode, except the right one, that of a 

 thorough knowledge of character. These teach- 

 ers have, generally, been knowing ones enougli, 

 to find that the best way to become popular, and 

 to get the most scholars, was to electioneer among 

 the boys. Since then, the boys have been know- 

 ing ones too, have had their day — have been men 

 — and some of them great men at fourteen. And, 

 now, who does not see that they, in a great mea- 

 sure, rule the country? 



It would be needless io give a detailed account 

 of female education, in this country, in former 

 times. Suffice it to say, that girls learned but 

 very little at school. They were taught to read, 

 write and cipher a little, by a matronly lady, in 

 the family, or at school in the neighborhood, 

 while very young; after which their educniioii 

 was chiefly domestic and maternal. The best of 

 books were put into their hands, and they acquir- 

 ed a taste for them, and such women as they 

 made immeasurably greater men than he who 

 addresses you have told the world. 



Our stranger in forming acquaintances begins 

 with the young ladies. lie first sees them at 

 church. JHe is struck with their mode of getting 

 there. He has somehow learned that their mo- 

 thers were not too proud to ride to church, two 

 on a horse. But now he sees a single eylph-like 

 being, whom he could have easily imagined to 

 Vol. IX.-64 



liave flown there, issuing from q fine carriage, 

 which cost her father more money than he can 

 leave her as a legacy. He is a bachelor, and 

 wishes to take the grand master's degree in life. 

 He has a great horror oi' carriages, as their intro- 

 duction brings with it all manner of luxury into 

 a community. He begins to think this is not the 

 country for him, but, like a prudent man, re- 

 solves to look further. Her dress, probably, cost 

 more than her mother thus expended in five 

 years, or her grand- mother in her life-time. He 

 finds that they all come to church, in carriages, 

 and that there are more of these on the ground 

 ihan can be readily counted. He thinks he can- 

 not settle in Virginia. But, the ladies are so 

 beautiful ! He must look further. On getting 

 better acquainted, he finds that they are very ac- 

 complished in novel-reading, know something 

 of grammar, geography, astronomy, geology, 

 mineralogy, chemistry, in short, of almost every 

 thing, except, perhaps, self-denial in expenditure, 

 the source whence money comes, and the art of 

 house-keeping. He makes his auguries of the 

 future prospects of agriculture in our dear old 

 dominion. "What a pity," he thinks, "that 

 these fine girls have not been well grounded, in 

 a thorough taste for the British classics general- 

 ly, and especially such poets as Milton, Thom- 

 son, Young and Cowper!" 



He turns to the boys. Many of these he 

 might have taken for young Indians, had their 

 skins been red, and their persons wrapped in 

 blankets. Their hair, dressed a la mode Chero- 

 kee, hangs to their throats. Their velvet hands 

 are covered with silk or kid gloves. Their dress, 

 of the most costly materials, is fashioned in that 

 style, which, but a few years ago, fixed upon the 

 few who had the firm hardihood to assume if, the 

 appellation of dandies. The supercilious glance 

 and magnificent stride proclaim, more loudly than 

 words, " who but we 1" " We are the lords of 

 creation !" And many of them carry out this 

 sentiment; for they rule all about them. Such 

 marvellous precocity amazes our stranger. But 

 he perse^'eres in his investigations, and finds that 

 they really are men, for they have their wine-par- 

 ties, and card-parties, and sometimes spend more 

 money in one of their nightly orgies, than their 

 fiithers make — as clear profit— in a whole year. 

 And that they swear in oaths as long, and as 

 senselessly arranged, as their own dishevelled 

 locks. " What are their calculations'?" he asks 

 in amazement. Why, they expect, as soon as 

 they become legally men, they will, by instinct, 

 or, in some other mysterious way, be perfect pro- 

 digies, and feeling that they have, indeed, tasted 

 of the tree of knowledge, they threaten, that if 

 the old man, as the (iithcr is irreverently calle^l, un- 

 dertake to control them, they will march to Alaba- 

 ma or Mississippi, or be off to Texas. But 

 how comes such deep depravity, at so early an 

 agel It is found, oh horrid! that these par- 

 ties are generally contrived by one or more older 

 boys with the same profusion of hair on their 

 heads, either natural or artificial, and a perfect 

 mop of it on their faces and throats— and that 

 all this is their diabolical work. Now, as to the 

 fashion of the hair, I am not very particular, but 

 when it becomes so perfectly the rage, as to give 

 an impress to character, and exert an influence 

 on morale, it deserves rebuke, it is true, i hav» 



