22 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Jan. 



his bright anticipations, there are some others 

 Vv'ho may. I notice a writer in the May number 

 of that very able and heavy-laden periodical, the 

 Genesee Farmer, entertains similar views. He 

 observes : "It will be a better day for all, when 

 it is discovered that the highest honors of the 

 college do not unfit a man for the practical duties 

 of agriculture — that it is not burying one's 

 knowledge to graduate from the college to the 

 farm." 



Why should not all mechanics, merchants, ed- 

 itors, artists and laborers, be liberally educated, 

 to give dignity to their varied callings ? I wish 

 they might, but know that a tithe of them cannot 

 be. These writers seem to be insensible of the 

 immense labor requisite to properly educate youth. 

 Although there is a vast amount of knowledge ex- 

 tant, and decreases none the less as it is acquired, 

 yet the work of education is a Herculean and 

 perpetual labor. Ignorance is the rock of Sis- 

 yphus, forever recoiling upon society. A man 

 can easily drop a fortune into his son's lap, yet 

 though learned as Newton or Bacon, he cannot 

 give him an idea without effort — as education or 

 learning is in its nature intransmissible. Hence 

 it is an obvious fact that society will always em- 

 brace a large number of ignorant beings. They 

 must be supported, and they must labor. What 

 shall they do ? If we raise agriculture, mechan- 

 ics and trading above their capacities, they must 

 enter the pulpit, the bar and medicine ! Such 

 an idea is, of course, preposterous. 



In our large cities and towns are great num- 

 bers of able-bodied men, some from foreign coun- 

 tries and others native born, out of employment, 

 and in danger of being led into crime. They are 

 told to go into the country and go to work. But 

 if a college education is to be required ere they 

 can properly wield the spade and the hoe, an ex- 

 tensive means of employment will be cut off. 

 Trying to be serious about the subject, I think 

 they should be employed, even if the University 

 farmers are obliged to hoe their row with such 

 profound ignorance and brute force — of which the 

 latter, I have always thought, never came amiss 

 on a farm. These unlettered men should be di- 

 rected and controlled, but employed thev must 

 be. 



I beg pardon of all farmers when I repeat the 

 opinion, (meaning no disrespect,) that to success- 

 fully carry on a farm does not demand the high- 

 est jrder of intellect, or the highest cultivation 

 of an ordinary intellect. If it did, we could not 

 expect many good farmers, neither could we hope 

 to see agriculture popular, or farm products cheap 

 and abundant, as they ought to be. It must be 

 evident to every reflecting man, that the culture 

 of God's earth should never become so elevated 

 and exclusive that the humblest man may not 

 freely engage in it, if he choose, and not feel 

 mortified and ill at ease from the vast array of 

 learning and agrarian aristocracy around him. 

 Farmers need not be scholastically learned, but 

 they should be sensible, and understand their 

 business better than any one's else. Perhaps 

 "the highest honors of a college" may not "un- 

 fit a man for the practical duties of agriculture," 

 but if they beget in him — as they always do — a 

 belief that he can get an easier livelihood in some 

 other vocation, the result to the farm is the same 

 as if they did. Men do not labor here or there, 



from sheer moral obligation, but from necessity 

 or interest. Give a hundred of our best farmers 

 a college education, and then look and see if you 

 can find them laboring three consecutive days in 

 their former employment — except as a mere 

 healthy pastime! 



If carpenters, masons and painters should meet 

 in convention, and resolve that they and their 

 business could never be properly respected until 

 their education was as good as that of any col- 

 lege graduate, I will venture to say that farmers 

 would smile ; for their labor is more of the hand 

 than the head. Yet it requires no more liberal 

 education to raise corn and potatoes than to build 

 a house. 



The respect which a discerning public yield to 

 the cultivators of the soil is permanent and 

 healthy, and should be appreciated. It is true, 

 they cannot expect, as such, to be recorded in 

 history, or to live in the future in brass or stone 

 — as we hope good farming is too common a 

 thing. This esteem is not that which is periodi- 

 cally lavished upon them by the politicians for 

 their endowment of suffrage, but that which a 

 State or federal election cannot effect. If their 

 respect were to rise and fall only with the politi- 

 cal barometer, they might well complain. As it 

 is, we think it argues ill for them to demur, as 

 he Avho habitually laments his position, instead 

 of boldly pushing on and forgetting it, rarely is 

 successful. 



Hon. Horace Greeley, of New York, lately de- 

 livered an able agricultural address in Indiana, 

 from which I quote the following sentence : "It 

 is the most melancholy feature of our present so- 

 cial condition, that very few of our bright, active, 

 inquiring, intelligent youth are satisfied to grow 

 up and settle down farmers." With all deference 

 to Mr. Greeley's opinion, and unfaltering respect 

 for the farmer's position, I cannot think so. If 

 the children of the hardy yeomanry make some 

 of the most enterprising men in the country, I 

 can see no good reason why other interests and 

 vocations should not share in the benefit of them. 

 If the country sends men to the city, the city re- 

 turns men to the country, and they are more like- 

 ly to become contented, and hence better farmers 

 than those youth who have had an opportunity 

 to see but little of the world ere they "settle 

 down farmers ;" for the latter can rarely be 

 made to believe that they could not have bettered 

 their condition. Let these intellectual youth go. 

 If they succeed, no one can complain ; if they re- 

 turn to become farmers, they will be the more 

 happy. I question whether Mi-. Greeley would 

 ever have delivered his elaborate address on Ag- 

 riculture, if he himself had not wandered to the 

 city, where he assumed a vocation whose success- 

 ful flow led to the establishment of the New York 

 Tribune, and sent its proprietor to Congress. 

 AVill farmers lament and exclaim, "O, how much 

 has agriculture lost in Horace Greeley's early be- 

 coming a printer ?" But he now owns a farm 

 and takes a great interest in rural pursuits. Very 

 well. Will he give his whole attention to that 

 vocation which seems to inspire him with so much 

 respect ? If so, and he bring ample means with 

 him back into the country, has agriculture or the 

 community suffered ? Others may do the same. 



Those who dp the least on the farm, I some- 

 times suspect, are the loudest in its praise. The 



