316 



/. S. Skinner^s Address. 



Vol. XI. 



ping-stones to knowledge — to be prized for 

 what they are worth, but not to be confound- 

 ed with knowledge itself. Oh, that I could 

 prevail upon the farmers of the United States, 

 on patriots of all parties, to unite and lay 

 their heads together and their shoulders to 

 the wheel on this great subject of agricultu- 

 ral education, as with all my heart I have 

 been labouring thirty years to do, and am 

 now doing, with more earnestness and more 

 hope than ever, through the pages of The 

 Farmers' Library! a work in which the 

 publishers give me full swing, and place 

 at my command the best materials that 

 money can procure, or art illustrate in any 

 country — a work which, with such materials 

 and a passion for the subject, I may venture 

 to say as the friend of agriculture, not of 

 yesterday or to-day, but of my whole life 

 time, and without fearing the imputation of 

 selfish or mercenary motives, oughL to he 

 placed in the hands of every American 

 landholder, and more especially in the hands 

 of every youth whose destiny is to live by 

 the cultivation of the earth. 



Were it possible to command for this sub- 

 ject of agricultural education, half the time 

 and attention which are given to party politics, 

 were it possible to compel an appropriation 

 to it of one-tenth that is expended for com- 

 mercial and warlike purposes, who dare say 

 what would be the benefits resulting to the 

 great interests of the country and of man- 

 kind, even in the lifetime of some who hear 

 me] Remember, you who have power to 

 control public sentiment and direct it in the 

 right way, that as you value the character 

 of your sons and the existence of your go- 

 vernment, you must enlighten the mass of 

 agriculturists. In a few years we shall 

 have fifty millions of people. Few are 

 aware of the geometrical ratio by which 

 our population is increasing, and how much 

 the agency of steam, were it only by savihg 

 the time of millions in travelling and en- 

 abling them to employ in productive industry 

 and in creating the means of subsistence, 

 the time that would otherwise be unproduc- 

 tively employed in travelling; few, I say, 

 are aware how wonderfully in this way 

 steam itself has become an augmenter of 

 population, by augmenting throughout the 

 world the means of subsistence on which 

 the increase of population depends. Now, 

 is any problem so fit to engage the head 

 and heart of the statesman and the phi- 

 lanthropist, as the question, how can this 

 great forthcoming mass of human beings be 

 best employed and fitted to make the most 

 of their facu^.ties, and to enjoy the blessings 

 of liberty] For myself, my anxiety is, as it 

 has ever been, for the. agriculturist— for the 



tillers of the soil. Enlighten them ; keep 

 them sound and virtuous, and you have the 

 best security that human foresight can de- 

 sire or establish. Let them, on the contrary, 

 be steeped in ignorance, and its invariable 

 concomitant, liability to corruption and cor- 

 rupt uses, and you lay the axe at the root of 

 all that is worthy to engage the solicitude 

 and anxieties of the statesman and patriot. 

 The very greatness of your numbers, which, 

 if instructed, would contribute to your na- 

 tional strength, will accelerate the catastro- 

 phe of ignorant and populous nations, throw- 

 ing up their greasy caps and crying hosan- 

 nahs at the moment of falling the miserable 

 victims to the arts of the demagogue, who 

 always flatters the people while he places 

 the sword in the hands of the despot to en- 

 slave them. 



Finally, let me exhort you to bear in mind 

 that all plans of reform in reference to this 

 first of all earthly concerns, the education 

 of your children, should equally embrace the 

 appropriate education of your daughters as 

 your sons. As the forward movement of 

 civilization, nay, of liberty itself, has been 

 everywhere attended with improvements in 

 agriculture and in all the social arts and' 

 amenities of life, so has it been equally 

 marked by more and more attention to the 

 female sex, and a higher appreciation of the 

 noble office of housewife and mother in every 

 domestic circle. That office of which it was 

 quaintly written three hundred years ago, 



"Though husbandry seenieth to bring in the gains, 

 Yet huswifery labours seem equal in pains; 

 Some respite to husbands weather may send, 

 But huswife afTairs have never an end." 



But for her, where should we get all our 

 household comforts'? What stimulus should 

 we have to cultivate the refinements of life'? 

 Why, even in the healing art, her offices are 

 indispensable to raise the head and cheer the 

 drooping spirits of the desponding invalid. 

 Her tender accents and soothing gentleness 

 can minister even to "a mind diseased." So 

 important are her duties and so inimitable 

 her tact in the chamber of sickness, that 

 Doctor Rush being once asked how much 

 the average duration of human life had been 

 increased by the Faculty, answered that it 

 depended oa whether the inquirer meant to 

 include old women nurses among the Faculty, 

 because, if they were excluded, the increase 

 had been of little account. But, my friends, 

 earnest, careful attention to female educa- 

 tion, is your bounden duty in a much higher 

 sense, and for yet more important considera- 

 tions. For, after all, is it not by the mother 

 that the first impress is given to the charac- 

 ter of the son, as the clay takes its form from 



