314 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



go, as at Annapolis, like "children of a larger growth," to see cannon loaded 

 and fired by the eleves of the Naval School — a school where the privileged few 

 get education and life commissions, at the cost of their constituents — yet they 

 have not the courage — they dare not even inquire, (for we have tried them ia 

 three States,) what is the cost of these militartj schools, thus supported by the 

 landed interest, and whether that interest might not be allowed to make so bold 

 as to petitio?i for some provision also for mstruction in the art of production, as 

 well as o{ destruction. But we have no patience to dwell on dereliction so pal- 

 pable, on such abject political coAvardice. The day we hope will come when 

 some man will have the discernment and the manliness to demand for agricul- 

 tural education, as for education in the science of human destruction, at least 

 dollar for dollar. 



For the present we took our pen merely to exhibit one token of an awakening 

 disposition to assert the wants and the rights of Agriculture, as we find the agre- 

 able proof of it in the Report of Mr. Coad of St. Mary's County, Maryland, 

 Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, in the last House of Delegates of 

 that State. Honorable as was this preliminary movement to his patriotism and 

 character as a legislator and statesman, it will he seen how cautiously he felt 

 himself obliged to approach the subject, as if he were going to demand some 

 great boon for the State, for the benefit of those who constitute the State and all 

 on which its prosperity depends. Probably he held in prudent, as he must have 



held in contemptuous recollection, a certain memorial once addressed from 



County in Maryland against the wisdom and necessity of any authorized geo- 

 logical data, or exploration of any part of the State ! Were we not restrained 

 by shame for our native state, we would put the self-stultifying document on 

 record with the names of its illustrious signers ; but let it be forgotten, with con- 

 genial Blue Laws, and laws for burning witches and Quakers ! ! 



The allusion at the close of the Report, of which we have taken only a part, 

 is to Hon. Mr. Naill, the zealous and enlightened Chairman of the Agricultural 

 Committee in the Senate of that State. 



It is scarcely necessary to add, so much is that a matter of course, that this 

 proposition, being for the benefit oi Agricultu'm, it evaporated in smoke ! None 

 the less honor, however, is due to the zeal and intelligence of its author. Let 

 zealous, conscientious, enlightened and industrious men be in all cases selected 

 with careful consideration, for these Committees on Agriculture and Education, 

 (not mere drones, or young lawyers who go to State Legislatures as stepping- 

 stones to higher places, — walking on the shoulders of farmers and planters into 

 power, as soldiers up scaling-ladders mto a fort) — and we may hope at last that 

 constant dropping will ivear away stones. Heartily as we approve the measure 

 proposed, as far as it goes, we must take leave to add that it falls very short of 

 what the landed interest of the State, in our poor judgment, has a right to de- 

 mand, (demand of whom? of themselves ;) and if the people — the bone and 

 sinew, the planters and farmers of Maryland, were of our mind — much as we 

 approve of the Naval School, and heartily as with our pen, for years, we endeav- 

 ored to have one located there, yet no Representative in Congress from Mary- 

 land should dare vote one penny for that, or any other Military School, until Con- 

 gress had provided, out of the sales of the Public Lands or otherwise, a fund for 

 the establishment of a Normal School for training teachers in the Sciences con- 

 nected with Agriculture. Suppose, for example, Strawberry Hill, which over- 

 looks Annapolis, were purchased and established as an agricultural training 



(C.3!) 



