REFORM IN EDUCATION. 51 



ture. In a large town, where the sale of our journal could not by the usual means 

 be raised above fifty copies, an enterprising individual, stepping beyond the 

 bounds of the ' trade,' elevated it with ea^ to twelve hundred copies. In another 

 but much larger town the sales of our publications generally have been latterly 

 doubled, merely by a bookseller in the place having incited a few men in poor 

 circumstances to become peripatetic dealers. These and other circumstances 

 convince us that the process of distributing literature has fallen considerably be- 

 hind the age, and admits of prodigious extension through the agency of a new 

 class of tradesmen acting aggressively on the masses." 



The editors of the" Journal" proceed to give instances of young men in needful 

 circumstances, who have commenced on the smallest scale, and who have risen 

 to be respectable stationary booksellers, and who have in turn given a start to 

 other young men in the same way. Might not thousands find employment ia 

 this way in our own country, who, after wasting years in idleness, getting sad 

 and sick with " hope deferred," at last give themselves up to despair and dissi- 

 pation, or finally enlist as common soldiers, and perish, at home or abroad, with, 

 the rum or the yellow fever. Take your publication, Mr. Editor, for example, 

 which ought to be read by every farmer and every farmer's son in this Union : 

 the publishers sell it to the trade at a discount that would enable any peripa- 

 tetic vender to pocket more than one dollar for every hundred. Now how many 

 young men might at least make an honest livelihood for the nonce, and see the 

 country at the same time, by combining the sale of The Farmers' Library with, 

 that of other publications.* But I should not have troubled you with this ex- 

 tract, were it not certain that you regard it as the bounden duty of every paper 

 devoted especially to the agricultural interest to suggest every means that may 

 appear feasible for distributing knowledge more diffusively through the masses, 

 seeing how much the public liberty depends on universal enlightenment where 

 «uifrage is so universal. But to this end there is first need of a great 



REFORM IN OUR SYSTEMS OF EDUCATION. 



To accomplish this, our leading men of influence in society must be awakened 

 to its importance. We must have capable and conscientious committees of edu- 

 cation in our Legislatures, to take the subject to heart. Parents must be shamed, 

 if they cannot otherwise be made sensible of their scandalous neglect of the mind 

 and character of their own off'spring. The press must eDlighten and animate 

 public sentiment. Congress must be forced to make provision to enable each. 

 State to rear up qualified instructors.! In vain shall a few enterprising book- 

 sellers, wielding the infinitely-multiplied powers of the press and facilities of 

 publication, provide cheap literature for a totally uneducated people ! The seed 

 must not be scattered on the way-side, to spring up amid thorns and brambles ; 



[* Will the friends of the work please suggest this to any honest young man who is in 

 need of employment, and would like to undertake it ? To all such young men of integrity 

 the publishers wiU supply or send six copies to any address they may designate, for $20— to 

 enable them to make the experiment. Ed. Farm. Lib.'\ 



[t The Representatives of the landed interest will be grossly derelict in their duty, and 

 will deserve to be repudiated by their constituents until they shall have done this. See 

 what they are doing, and wisely doing — if we must have wars — to uisure greater skill and 

 efficiency in all operations by the cannon and the sword ; and would not the application of 

 Science, provided for in like manner by the General Government, do as much for the more 

 beneficent operations of the plow ? The British Government is turning out annually 300 

 instructed civil teachers for Ireland : ought a republican people — propagating its piinciples 

 by the sword, and inculcating hati-ed of monarchies — to allow them to outdo it in providing 

 for the education of the people ? Talk of Internal Improvements ! The best sort of internal 

 improvements would be to give, out of the public lands or otherwise, to each State, the 

 means of educating teachers for schools of instruction of fanners' sons, in that which consti- 

 tutes the ciWl part of the course at West Point — Bridge-building, Road-making, Mineralogy, 

 Chemistry, Botany, &c. — and this ia what the landed interest would soon accomplish, if they 

 had the aid of the pubUc press. Ed. Farm. Lib.'\ 



(147) 



