2fi 



N E V\^ E N GLAND FARM E R 



J11.V 



!S40. 



For the N. E. Taimcr. 



RURAL EDUCATION. 

 No. I. 

 If any one should suppose that by rural educa- 

 tion, something is meant inferior to city ediicalion, 

 he greatly misunderstands my views. After hav- 

 ing contended, as I have done, that civilization it- 

 self, owes every thing to the labors of the field, the 

 means, and the inspiring objects which not only 

 invite lo the contemplation of nature's works, but 

 almost force it npon us, and teach us how to make 

 the most of them, and in some deiiroe to improve 

 and multiply them; I say, after these high prclen- 

 eions for rural life, and the expressed hope of fu- 

 ture progress from the same source, it cannot be 

 supposed that rural education is to assume an in- 

 ferior rank. So far is this idea foreign from my 

 present thoughts, that I sincerely believe that the 

 highest grade of improvement to which our iiatuie 

 is susceptible, must depend upon the pure moral 

 air, and the necessary and honest labors of the 

 field, for all future progress. 



Too much credit has been given to the cities for 

 past improvements. It is true that some of their 

 philosophers have wrought up to considerable ad- 

 vantage the ideas furnished by tlie country ; and 

 their merchants have carried to foreign lands her 

 superlluous products, bringing back in return, new 

 products and some new ideas ; and thereby the 

 city philosophers and merchants liave contributed 

 to our present stock of comforts and knowledge. 

 Still we must look back to mother earth for the 

 foundation of these city labors. 



But whence comes that moral lore, that unique 

 cement which alone keeps society itself from fall- 

 ing asunder .' Do the philosophers manufacture it ? 

 Do the merchants import it from abroad ? Is it to 

 be found in the laws, the usages, the manners, the 

 government or the religion of foreign countries ? 

 Are the cities the places where all these exotic 

 plants are the least congenial and least apt to take 

 root ? Are the cities the fruitful, congenial soil 

 in which morals thrive best ? " What are laws 

 without morals ?" was the enquiry of an ancient 

 philosopher: " Cluid projiciunt testes sine inoribus." 

 No : the cities have done much good, fur which 

 we thank ihein ; and much evil, which we should 

 remember, not in malice, but as a wholesome lesson 

 to the whole human race. 



Let not our gratiiude to the feudal cities, for 



ism. I will not lengthen this paper by arguing ; bor and the loss of his estate to causes which were 

 this point, for I am writing to intelligent men, who | not the real ultimate causes. But if they would 

 know the history of cities, from those of Palestine know whether the agricultural interest were rising 

 to the Gulf of I'^iidnnil, and from Paris to the capi- or otherwise, in the great scale of national prosperi- 

 tal of the Celestial Empire. They may there learn \ ty, — if they would know whether the moral and po- 

 what part cities take in the government of king- litical standard of the farmer were more or less 

 doms ; and then ask, pertinently, what despots \ elevated, in comparison with other vocations, now 



would do without their potent aid ? 



But with all due gratitude to the cities for the 

 improvement they have made of the precious talent 

 confided to them by the country, it may be asked, 

 without offence, what would have been the condi- 

 tion of the world at present, if the cities and their 

 mighty rulers had contented themselves with a fair 

 compensation for the labors required of them ; 

 which are as useful in their kind, I admit, as those 

 of the fields; and have left the ownership of the 

 soil to those who make it fruitful with the sweat of 

 I iheir brows, and a fair share of the products of 

 I those labors ? Would the farmers have been less 

 1 intellectual because they would be less miserable? 

 ' Would no shaded academic groves have been found 

 in the country, where rural philosophers might 

 have collated, discussed and compared the vast sum 

 of data fresh to their hands, with all that which the 

 city merchants could bring to them from foreign 

 places? Would the soil of these rural retreats of 

 science be less propitious than the hard pavings 

 and soft morals of the city ? Would the quiet, or- 

 derly, intelligent labors of nature, prove to be a 

 less inspiring scene to the student, than the discor- 

 dant din and discrepant action of the, city ? 



If then any physical advantages be conceded to 

 the quiet country, shall I be allowed to ask fur- 

 ther, whether the city philosopher be so free from 

 bias, from a thousand sources, as the more indepen- 

 dent and isolated inhabitant of the fields? Need 

 I mention the checks and shackles which necessa- 

 rily impede the free expression of thought in the 

 city philosopher ? Look at the history of all cit- 

 ies, and reflect on the fate of the boldest and snb- 

 limest benefactors of our race in the cities — Socra- 

 tes, Galileo, Faustus — and to sum up all, look at 

 Christ, and the place of his suffering. To politi- 

 cians I would mention the patriol James Otis. 'J'o 

 the advocates of hninaii liberty and the lovers of 

 religious freedom, I might cite instances of perse- 

 cution offered in this orderly city. 



I believe that I may conclude, that however well 



moral science may have thrived in tln^ cities, and 



' by the influence of city interest, manners and hab- 



, . „ ■ . , . , , , i its, it would have made Idler progress in situations 



their former resistance to barorual despotism, and i <• r .1 • a 



. , . . .,,-.■ , , .! more free from these influences, 



for having given the first impulse to the return of 



liberty, blind us to their defects. One of the apos- 

 tles of our revolution has told us that "great cities 



were great sore."." And what moral talc do not 

 the great cities of Europe tell us? Have not they 

 and their lordly inhabitants — though formerly warm 

 sticklers for liberty and opponents lo the steel-clad 

 tyrants — become tyrants in their turn, and swallow- 

 ed up the fat products of the fields, deprived by 

 .partial laws, slowly progressive, the miserable cul- 

 tivators of every inch of land, and obliged them to 

 live on a scanty allowance of thrice-culled pota- 

 toes, — which British writers say is the present con- 

 dition of the Irish peasantry ? But I would not be 

 ungrateful to the cities for the smallest favors ; — 

 and I would, if 1 could in conscience, believe that 

 none of our cities would ev(!r do as other cities 

 have done, even if they liad the power. 



It will be here remarked that I speak of Europe- 

 nn cities, as if they were the originators of despot- 



P)Ut the principal 

 force of my position does not lie in the relative ad- 

 vantages of the American cities and the American 

 fields, as they now are. I have therefore alluded 

 often to European town ami country. In America, 

 town and country are, fortunately, as yet, not so 

 dissimilar. But I may be allowed to use here the 

 principle, however small in degree we may find a 

 similarity between European cities and ours, or 

 European laborers and American independent far- 

 mers. That difleronce is yet enormous, especially 

 between the two latter. May it always remain so : 

 or rather may the time C(mie when no American, of 

 the ago of twentyfive, shall be without his farm, in 

 fee simple, and that not mortgaged to banks or city. 

 May our happy inde[]eiident farmers be sensible of 

 their happiness, jealous of it, and ever watchful to 

 arrest the suiallest encroachments. They should 

 not confine their attention to individual cases, be- 

 cause tlioy would be liable lo be deceived by false 

 appearances and to attribute the decline of ? ■" >'.fW, 



and formerly; they must not compare the houses 

 they live in with those their fathers inhabited, or 

 the clothes they now wear or the food they eat, 

 with that of their ancestors. But they must ask 

 what is their relative standing with the members of 

 the other professions. Let them take it for a cer- 

 tain truth, that if they have made one retrograde 

 step, as a class, they are destined to go down to 

 the foot of the hill, sooner or later. They must 

 hold together, as the other classes do, or their fate 

 is sealed. 



Individual property is indispensable for the in- 

 dependence of body or mind. Without it, there 

 can be no leisure for mental cultivation. Mental 

 cultivation would seem to be the object of this let- 

 ter, but I cannot enter upon that subject, specifi- 

 cally, without a foundation, which I am now seek 

 ing. 



A considerable participation in the soil of Eu- 

 rope by its cultivators, must have existed at various 

 periods of its history, we know ; for we read of re- 

 volts against the monopolizers of the land, and of 

 agrarian laws being forced upon those monopoli- 

 zers. How happened it, then, thai the cultivators 

 of the soil have been almost universally dispossess- 

 ed of any share in its property? This miracle 

 could not have been wrought in a day, nor could it 

 have been accomplished at all, if the cultivators, 

 who constitute the almost totality of those nations, 

 had been enlightened on their true interest. The 

 only means then, by which this injustice could 

 have been perpetrated, must have been deception 

 and force united. Force alone could never have 

 accomplished it, for force was with the injured 

 party. Fraud, then, must have been the principal 

 instrument. And here I am sorry to find, that iho 

 very shepherds, whose sacred duty it was to pro- 

 tect the confiding flocks from the wolves, were 

 among the principal instruments by which the most 

 useful and most numerous portion of the human 

 race, were dispossessed of every thing which their 

 conspiring, civil and ecclesiastical tyrants could 

 deprive them of, — the soil they had made fertile, 

 and the use of their own minds. 



This entire dispossession will not be denied by 

 any one who knows any thing of the state of old 

 countries. And those in whose hands the stolen 

 property is found, must be considered as the thieves, 

 or receivers of the stolen goods as bad as thieves. 

 Before the revolution of France, the royal domain, 

 the nobilliary estates, and the clergy's lands, com- 

 prised the whole kingdom. It is the same now in 

 all the rest of Europe ; and must remain so, until 

 some terrible revolution bring about the bloody 

 remedy. 



I state these facts, merely to show the impor- 

 tance of guarding against similar results, now that 

 it is lime, and by the only means by which it can 

 be done. Those means are, riiriil education, which 

 is my text. 



Why do I call it rural education ? Because 

 that which I have in my mind is more especially 

 for the interest, the permanent interest of the most 

 numerous and the most useful part of the human 

 race ; without whose labors all other classes would 

 be useless and would not exist. Surely, the great 



