FARMERS' REGISTER— THE CAUSE OF FARMERS. 



727 



of potasli, and natron or carbonate of soda, alum, 

 borax, sal ammoniac, and sulphate of iron, or green 

 vitriol, which are most extensively useful salts in 

 many processes of the arts, are either found aliun- 

 dantly in various parts of the world, or may be ob 

 tained by very easy means : while a thousand oth- 

 er saline compounds, which are rarely of any prac- 

 tical im|)ortance, are scarcely known to exist in a 

 native state. 



THE CAUSE OF FARMERS. 



From a Baccalaureate Address, pronounced at a 

 commencement of the University of Nashville, 

 Tenn. by Philip Lindsley, President. 

 " I care as little about names as any man. If 

 the 7ia77ie of college or university be unsavory in 

 the ears of the people or of the people's guardians 

 and conscience keepers, let it be cashiered. Let 

 our colleges and universities be called academies, 

 lyceums, gymnasia, common schools, or popular 

 intellectual workshops — or by any other republi- 

 can appellation, if any more acceptable or less in- 

 vidious can be invented. It is the thing — the sub- 

 stance — the knowledge — the mental enlargement 

 and energy and power — that I would give to the 

 people in as ample measure as possible. That 

 they may be sovereign in fact as well as in name. 

 That they may be capable of knowing and guard- 

 ing and asserting their own rights and liberties, 

 without the second sight of any political juggler or 

 officious bankrupt Solomon. 



" I would create here in Nashville, or in Knox- 

 ville, or in Memphis, or in each, a university 

 or great common school — with accommodations 

 for a thousand pupils — with able instructers, li 

 braries, apparatus, and all manner of useful fix- 

 tures and appurtenances — at the expense of the 

 commonwealth. Every poor youth, properly qua- 

 lified, should be admitted to its privileges gratis. 

 The rich might pay for their sons. But none should 

 be excluded tor want of means. If more than a thou- 

 sand pupils should offer— enlarge the establishment 

 or erect others upon the same plan. This would 

 be a species of internal improvement worthy of 

 the republic, and which would elevate Tennessee to 

 a rank never yet attained by any people. And the 

 Legislature which shall boldly lay the corner stone 

 of such a magnificent temple of popular instruc- 

 tion, will deserve and will gain a glorious immor- 

 tality, whatever may be the verdict of their con- 

 stituents or of their contemporaries. Their mag- 

 nanimous and enlightened patriotism w ill be cele- 

 brated a thousand lustrums after the petty inter- 

 ests and conflicts of this selfish generation shall be 

 forgotton. 



" I have asserted that colleges have done good, 

 or that learning has been useful. That, like 

 wealth and power, when possessed only by a few 

 it has been often abused to the injury of others. 

 That our college graduates have generally been 

 the faithful sentinels and advocates of popular 

 rights. That if any appear to be swerving from 

 the straight path of rectitude, it is because they 

 have discovered an ignorant mass on which to ope- 

 rate. That the only remedy for the evil — the on- 

 ly preventive of its recurrence and of its raj)id in- 

 crease — is the immediate education of a much lar- 

 ger proportion of the people. Not the giving 

 them what is called a common school education — 

 the most of them have this already — and it does not 

 suffice. The man who can merely read and write 



is no match for the through-bred political gladia- 

 tor. He cannot dispel tlio sophistry even of the 

 village attorney or of the village gazette. He is 

 just the man (') 1)C led astray by the new spaper es- 

 sayist. And the newspaper is the very engine em- 

 ployed to gull the people who can read, but who 

 are too ignorant to discriminate, to reason and to 

 judge. 



"Nonebut enemies of the people will ever grave- 

 ly maintain that a common school education, in- 

 the ordinary meaning of the phrase, is all they 

 need. This would be virtually telling them to be 

 hewers of wood and drawers of water under po- 

 litical task masters for ever. Why is it that our 

 lawyers rule the nation, and fill all our lucrative 

 offices, from the presidency downwards.' Simply 

 and solely because they can do something more 

 than read and write. If our mechanics and far- 

 mers would enter the lists with our lawyers, they 

 must acquire the same degree of intellectual pow- 

 er and address. Nor would this prove a very dif- 

 ficult achievement. Take the common run of 

 our lawyers— and they are no great things. The 

 mechanics and farmers might easily beat them at 

 their own game and with their own weapons. If 

 they did but unilerstand their interests, they vyould 

 unite with the schoolmaster, make common cause 

 with him, and assert their natural rights and influ- 

 ence in society. Let them take this matter of 

 schools and colleges into their own hands. Let 

 them rally around our most respectafile and meri- 

 torious, though poor, persecuteil and much reviled 

 university. Let them contrihute the trifle of a 

 hundred thousand dollars or so, to its funds, and 

 send to it a few hundred of their clever youths to 

 acquire the art of lawyer-fighting — and we shall 

 soon see them at the head of alfairs as they ought 

 to be. This is the best advice that I can give them. 

 If they prefer ignorance, and are determined to 

 keep their sons in ignorance — -then, farewell to all 

 their greatness, and to all the dignitj' which their 

 position might justly command. They may frown 

 upon colleges — they may aliuse them — they may 

 starve them — they may scatter them to the winds — = 

 but they only sink themselves the lower in the 

 general scale of humanity. Instead of training 

 their own sons to illustrate their names and to 

 adorn the commonwealth, thcj' will become the 

 spoil and the scorn of every Euro})ean or eastern 

 adventurer who may choose to settle among them. 

 For they cannot interdict the ingress of as much 

 talent and learning from abroad as will suffice to 

 discharge those ])ublic and prof(?ssional functions to 

 which they would themselves be totallv inadequate. 



" 1 have l)een pleading the cause of farmers and 

 mechanics for some ten or dozen years past. Be- 

 cause upon them, as enlightened, judicious, inde- 

 pendent, patriotic citizens, depend the destinies of 

 this republic. The question is, shall they lead or 

 be led.' Shall they arrest and put down the factious 

 spirit of unprincipled amiiition, or shall they tame- 

 ly lend themselves as the instruments and the vic- 

 tims of its desperate and treasonable purposes.' 

 The crisis has arrived when the people must speak 

 and act wisely and resolutely, or their ability to 

 speak and to act, with decisive efficiency, will be 

 lost for ever. 



" The lawyers are now our sole political guides 

 and instructers. They engross the learning of the 

 country ; I mean all that learning which is brought 

 to bear on government, legislation and public jx)l- 



