EDUCATION OF FARMERS. 309 



attention is bestowed upon them than is necessary for such 

 purpose. 



It is too late to re-open the question as to the necessity of 

 educating the farming community for its own sake as well as 

 for the sake of all other classes. To the rural population we 

 must look for the substratum of all society, and from it come 

 not only those who provide the material means for the subsist- 

 ence of all others, but from its ranks are recruited the greater 

 proportion of the most reliable business and professional men, 

 and useful and efficient women. This class of society should be 

 able to furnish the best possible material in the future, as it has 

 in the past, for the use of the State, but as its prosperity has not 

 increased in the same proportion as that of others, it cannot care 

 for itself, even as formerly, when the pinchings of parental 

 economy, the savings of fraternal and sisterly affection, scarce 

 sufficed to educate one member of the family ; and now that 

 education in other institutions has become so costly, farmers' 

 sons can only be instructed in institutions adapted to their 

 means and objects. 



"Whether or no special institutions can educate agricul- 

 turists, and whether the business of farming can be conducted 

 scientifically, and to the profit of the farmer and the nation, 

 are questions of the past. The hundreds of agricultural 

 schools in Europe attest the avidity with which more thorough 

 knowledge — of the natural laws which govern the growth of 

 crops and the atmospheric changes, of the habits, anatomy and 

 diseases of domestic animals, of the principles of mechanics 

 applicable to farm implements and machinery, and of many other 

 things, not possible to be learned without special instruction — 

 is sought; and the result of such instruction has been showQ 

 by the greatly increased production of the soil in those coun- 

 tries which foster these institutions. 



With the aid of a national grant, the State of Massachusetts 

 has initiated an institution to promote the education of the most 

 prominent and numerous industrial class in the Commonwealth, 

 and so far as the experiment has progressed it is a success. It 

 is not, however, complete, for the original scheme of providing 

 buildings for four classes has not been perfected, and until that 

 is done it cannot be said that the spirit of the original grant nor 

 the intentions of the organizers of the institution have been 



