AGRICULTURAL WANT OF EDUCATION. 79 



necessarily spent away from all practical pursuits, and almost 

 exclusive attention given during most of this period to the dead 

 languages, pure mathematics and metaphysics. The natural 

 sciences and mixed mathematics are studied comparatively 

 little, and without reference to their application to agriculture, 

 or any other art. 



Again, nearly all students when entering upon a classical 

 course have in view one of the three learned professions, and 

 naturally come to regard themselves as rising above the level of 

 the agricultural community, precisely in proportion to the 

 extent of their literary attainments. 



Finally, most college graduates are destitute of any other 

 capital than their education, and are therefore compelled to 

 begin life in a small way by teaching, or the practice of a pro- 

 fession which requires but a moderate investment of money. 

 Without land, stock, tools, or ready cash, without a knowledge 

 of business in general, or farming in particular, and without the 

 respect or sympathy of the farmers themselves, the graduate of 

 a classical college has few inducements to enter the profession. 



Let no one, however, imagine that study tends to indolence, 

 or that professional men are less laborious than farmers, or that 

 an educated farmer will accomplish less than an ignorant one. 

 It has been well said that " what is often called indolence is, in 

 fact, the unconscious consciousness of incapacity." On the other 

 hand, knowledge is power, and its conscious possession must ren- 

 der the farmer, as well as every other man, more ambitious, 

 more energetic and more efficient. Genius has been well de- 

 fined as capacity for labor, and the most patient and enthusi- 

 astic Workers of the world are the great scholars. Thought is 

 " brain-sweat," and mental labor is vastly more exhausting than 

 the exercise of the muscles ; yet there are multitudes of studious 

 men who toil more hours every day than the most diligent of 

 farmers. 



Professor Agassiz while engaged in writing his great work 

 upon the glaciers, after spending some months amid the ever- 

 lasting snows of the Alps, remained for two whole years in gown 

 and slippers, as it were in a chrysalis state, before astonishing 

 the world by his appearance as the author of one of the most 

 surprising and original scientific theories ever propounded. Who 

 of us could be hired to perform one-half the filthy, disgusting 



