150 



Skinner's Address. 



Vol. IX, 



cation of trade, the perfection of the arts, 

 the creation of wealth, and with it, innume- 

 rable artificial wants, whicli it is the busi- 

 ness and tlie benefit of your pursuit to sup- 

 ply. " Ta fix the happiness and virtue of a 

 nation on a solid foundation," says a cele- 

 brated philosopher, "they must rest on a re- 

 ciprocal dependence between all the orders 

 of citizens." While tlien ever^^ farmer 

 should himself take especial care that as 

 far as it may be practicable, he is not en- 

 cumbered v/ith a single idle mouth — of man, 

 woman, or child, bird or beast — with not one 

 consuming non-producer on his own estate — 

 white, as with some economical people, even 

 every cow should be kept at the yoke or the 

 pail, let him rejoice that tl>e consumers be- 

 yond his estate should prosper beyond mea- 

 sure in variety of em])loyments, in numbers 

 and in wealth. Yet there are moral incen- 

 diaries, from which no country is exempt, 

 whose business it is to inflame one class 

 against another — tiie farmer against the 

 merchant, the artizan against the man of 

 science, the poor against the rich; not stop- 

 ping or caring to reflect, that when, by the 

 base arts of the demagogue, the honest aval 

 of diligence and talents siiall have been put 

 in continual jeopardy, the mainspring of all 

 social melioration will liave been broken, 

 and society turned ba-ck on that dreadful 

 march, which leads again to all the crime 

 and anarchy which invariably follow in the 

 train of unrestrained ignorance and selfish- 

 ness. But, essential to the common prospe- 

 rity of a people as are the existence and the 

 success of the numerous classes to vvliich 

 the industry, the wealth-, and the wants of 

 dense populations give rise, it does not fol- 

 low that any one of the classes, and especi- 

 ally the most numerous and psodactive, as 

 is tiie agricultural: in our country,, should 

 surrender to lawyers ami men of other pro- 

 fessions, its own right and obligation to take 

 their full share in the enactment and execu- 

 tion of the laws. Far be it from rae to en- 

 courage among farmers a gravelling thirst 

 for office, either to gratify a vain ambition 

 for a little brief authority, or as the preca- 

 rious means of livelihood, so little to be co- 

 veted in comparison with the humblest sub- 

 sistence acquired by the independent exercise 

 of individual abilities; bcit what I do me 

 to insist on is, that until vvc have "angels 

 in the shape of men to govern us," farmers 

 should never rest satisfied, until they shall 

 have established a system of education which 

 shall qualify their sons to prosecute their 

 particular avocation with a knowledge of 

 the ■principles that essentially belong to it; 

 and that sliall at the same time endow them 

 with capacity to perform that most import- 



ant of all duties, the making of their own 

 aws. Let it not be said or supposed, that 

 tliis subject has no connexion with practical 

 agriculture, and that no real evil has re- 

 sulted from this ignoble surrender to other 

 classes of all the business of government; 

 for it never yet happened, where classes or 

 individuals habitually resigned to the hands 

 of agents the entire management of their 

 own concerns, that the principal did not suf- 

 fer sooner or later. That it should be so is 

 in fact but the merited reward of indolence 

 and overweening credulity. 



Take care then, I repeat, that if you 

 would have your cliildren taught to think 

 and to act for themselves, or by the agency 

 of those whose interests are in all respects 

 identical with their own, that you have them 

 instructed in the sciences kindred to agri- 

 culture and necessary to its success, and to 

 the pursuit of it a-s a delightful exercise of 

 the mind as well as of the body; aad my life 

 for it, if these studies in early life do not of 

 themselves qualify them for the various pub- 

 lic trusts in tiie performanse of which their 

 j property and liberties are involved, the very 

 [pursuit ef thein Yvill generate a fondness for 

 jbooks and for intellectual discovery and en- 

 joyment, that will speedily distinguish and 

 raise them in the public esteem to an intel- 

 lectual level with the most favoured classes, 

 and cause them to be sought lor and dele- 

 gated, like the good farmers of Miletus, re- 

 ferred to by Herodotus,, to the highest public 

 trusts in times of great emergency. Besides^ 

 ray Iriands, I need not tell yoa, tlmt the very 

 love of books on natural history and the 

 physical sciences, connected with agricul- 

 ture, which is sure to follow the early use 

 of them, is in itself one of the most invalu- 

 able and honourable of all possessions — the 

 cheapest and the most accessible — one which 

 may be enjoyed in sickness and in health — 

 in a prison as in a palace. Thus was it 

 truly said by a celebrated statesman and 

 scholar, eveiy advance into knowledge opens 

 a new scene of delight, and the joy tliat we 

 feel in the actual possession of one, will be 

 heightened by that vvhich we expect to find 

 in another, so that, before we can exhaust 

 this fund of successive pleasures, death will 

 come to end cur pleasures and our pains at 

 once. 



Let those who doubt the comparative ne- 

 glect of the laiuled interest, which may be 

 said to result in a great measure from yield<- 

 ing up the government to tliose v.hose wel- 

 fare is less intunately blended with agricul- 

 ture, contemplate for a moment the spirit 

 and tendency of our laws, as a code, since 

 the formation of the Government, and ob- 

 serve how stud-lously, and by millions oa 



