JUDGE BUEL'S ADDRESS. 323 



It will stimulate to the improvement of the mind ; 

 to elevate and purify it ; it will lead to self-respect, 

 to virtuous moral deportment. And it will tend to 

 deter from the formation of bad habits, which steal 

 upon the ignorant and the idle unawares, and which 

 consign thousands of young men to poverty and dis 

 grace, if not to premature graves. A knowledge of 

 these principles, to a very useful extent, can be ac- 

 quired with as much facility in the school or upon 

 the farm as other branches of learning. Why, then, 

 shall they not be taught 1 Why shall we withhold 

 from our agricultural population that knowledge 

 which is so indispensable to their profit, to their in- 

 dependence, and to their correct bearing as free- 

 men ? Why, while we boast of our superior privi- 

 leges, keep in comparative ignorance of their busi- 

 ness that class of our citizens who are truly the 

 conservators of our freedom ? I know of but one 

 objection : the want of teachers. A few years ago, 

 civil engineers were not to be found among us. The 

 demand for them. created a supply. We have de- 

 monstrated that we have the materials for civil en- 

 gineers, and that we can work them up. We have 

 materials for teachers of agricultural science, which 

 we can also work up. Demand will always ensure 

 a supply. 



The enumeration of the foregoing obstacles to 

 agricultural improvement sufficiently indicates the 

 means which will be efficient in removing them. 

 These means consist, so far as I now propose to 

 notice them, 



1. In giving ^professional education to the young 

 farmer, which shall embrace the principles and prac- 

 tice of the business which he is designed to follow 

 in life ; and, 



2. In diffusing more extensively among those who 

 have completed their juvenile studies, and are better 

 fitted to profit by the lessons of wisdom and experi- 

 ence, a knowledge of the same principles, and of the 



