1856. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



59 



chanical operation, is of the greatest auxiliary use. | geology will show him that knowledge ; that it is 



But if the manual labor is intended as the means of 

 inslrudion in the handicraft of the farm, it would 

 seem to be a disproportionate means to the object 

 to be attained. It is paying a large price for a 

 small acquisition. 



We repeat, that the place for the study that com- 

 prises the education of the man, and completes it, 

 is not the school. In the case of the lawyer, it is 

 the office and the court-house. In that of the 

 physician, it is the study and the sick chamber. In 

 the case of the farmer, it must be the fireside and 

 the farm. And the time is the interval of labor 

 through life. If a man designs to go thoroughly 

 into the study of any particular science, to make 

 himself a master of it, he makes that particular 

 study his business for life, or until he has accom 

 plished it. Such is the mode, and only mode, in 

 and by which, a man masters any science. So Lin- 

 njEus made himself — and was not made by the 

 school — the greatest botanist in the world ; so Her- 

 schel, Newton, La Place mastered the knowledge of 

 the stars, and sounded the depths of mathematical 

 science ; and so did that son of Massachusetts, Bow- 

 ditch, in the same department of knowledge, make 

 himself at once familiar with the heavens, and a 

 light to guide the seamen on the deep. The knowl- 

 edge, such as these men obtained, comprises the ed- 

 ucation of the man, and is attained, and must be, 

 hy the man himself, and cannot be imparted by the 

 school or college. Tae full knowledge of any one 

 or more of the sciences, is to be gained in the same 

 way, and in that way alone. And so is the knowl- 

 edge which may be necessary or useful in the busi- 

 ness of life, to be acquired in the same way. 



The particular means of attaining such a knowl- 

 edge as is desired by the farmer, are books, agricul- 

 tural papers and lectures. If the difficulty arises, how 

 he shall know, without direction of some person of 

 better knowledge, what sciences he shall study, or 

 •what books are the best exponents of them, we 

 answer, that in this age of printing and lecturing, 

 the least inquisitive mind may find the proper direc- 

 tion if it seeks it. It is not easy to imagine any se- 

 rious difficulty in the case, because a man will be 

 qualified to b'e his OAvn guide, as soon as his own 

 mind is sufficiently prepared, by cultivation, for the 

 study. Such studies, by a mind unpre2)ared, would 

 be attended with results similar to the planting of 

 corn in a rocky and hard soil, without any of the 

 elements of productiveness first being given to it by 

 the application of the proper dressing and culture. 

 It would be a barren harvest. The reading of the 

 farming papers and hearing of lectures, would pre- 

 pare his mind for the higher studies of the sciences 

 and create in it the desire for that knowledge. He 

 ■will soon find from this reading that a knowl- 

 edge of the constituents of the soil, and of the ditier- 

 cnt kinds of soil, is desirable, and that the science of 



important to know the peculiar combinations and 

 proportions of those constituents in the vegetable 

 world, and in any particular kind of plant, and 

 that he must resort to books of chemistry to give 

 him this knowledge ; and that the knowledge de- 

 rived from both these sciences would be gi-eatly in- 

 creased to him, as, a farmer, if he knew the struc- 

 ture of the plant, its principles of growth, the oper- 

 ation of its functions in appropriating the aliment 

 within reach, in conveying that aliment to its sev- 

 eral parts, and converting it to its destined use 

 in the vegetable economy ; and he will understand 

 that for this knowledge he must study vegetable 

 anatomy and physiology. His next step in the 

 progress will be to obtain the best books and to 

 pursue those studies at his fireside, making the illus- 

 trations of the docti-ine contained in them from 

 the daily works and matters that come mider his 

 care. This is the mode in which the farmer must 

 be educated. 



If it is not already sufficiently stated, let it be 

 again repeated, that no education, either seholastit 

 or professional, is sufficient to give him the whofe- 

 of this learning. There cannot be, from the> nature 

 of the case, any school that can thoroughly: educate 

 a man, in any science. The instruction tbere ob- 

 tained must be rudimentary and limited^ There is 

 no institution in which Linnaeus, Newton, Herschel 

 and La Place could have pursued their studies, to 

 the extent to which they pursued them, nor caia 

 there be ; nor in which a complete education in any 

 science can be obtained ; nor ta such extent less 

 than that, to which many persons would desire to 

 pursue the studies necessary to tlie science of agri- 

 culture. Davy, and Chaptal, and Liebig, and John- 

 son, the teachers in this science, learned it in the 

 way here pointed out — there being no institutions 

 capable of carrying instruction to the point to which 

 they attained. The education of the man is be- 

 yond the capacity of the school or college. They 

 can educate the youth : — the man must educate 

 himself in whatever science or pursuit, in whatever 

 department of knowledge he may choose. This ed- 

 ucation consists both in the practical appHcation of 

 the rudiments learned in a course of study, and in 

 an accumulation of a body of knowledge in detail 

 neither of which can be taught in a school. 



Whooping Cough. — ^The Springfield Republican 

 says, whooping cough has prevailed in this city this 

 season to a considerable extent. A very great re- 

 lief, we are assured upon practical knowledge, k ob- 

 tained by wearing about the neek a fresh tarred 

 rope, of the size of a bed-cord, covered with a thin 

 ribbon. The aroma of the tar has a wonderful ef- 

 fect in quieting the cough, and preventing the 

 <ipasms — two very essential items iu the managc- 

 LuenL of the disoi'der. 



