AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 95 



who labor upon the land. Will a college in each State answer 

 the demand for agricultural education now existing ? Is it 

 safe in any country or in any profession or pursiiit, to educate 

 a few and leave the majority to the indirect influence of the 

 culture thus bestowed? And is it philosophical, in this country, 

 where there is a degree of personal and professional freedom 

 such as is nowhere else enjoyed, to found a college or higher 

 institution of learning upon the general and admitted ignorance 

 of the people in the given department ? or is it wiser by ele- 

 mentary training and the universal diffusion of better ideas, to 

 make the establishment of the college the necessity of the cul- 

 ture previously given ? Every new school, not a college, makes 

 the demand for the college course greater than it was before ; 

 and the advance made in our public schools increases the stu- 

 dents in the colleges and the university. We build from the 

 primary school to the college, and without the primary school 

 and its dependents, — the grammar, high school and academy, — 

 the colleges would cease to exist. This view of education sup- 

 ports the statement that an agricultural college is not the foun- 

 dation of a system of agricultural training, but a result that is 

 to be reached through a preliminary and elementary course of 

 instruction. What shall that course be ? I say, first, the 

 establishment of town or neighborhood societies of farmers and- 

 others interested in agriculture. These societies ought to be 

 auxiliary to the county societies, and they never can become 

 their rivals or enemies unless they are grossly perverted in their 

 management and purposes. As such societies must be mutual 

 and voluntary in tlieir character, they can be established in any 

 town where there are twenty, ten, or even five persons who are 

 disposed to unite together. Its object would, of course, be the 

 advancement of practical agriculture, and it would look to 

 theories and even to science as means only for the attainment 

 of a specified end. The exercises of such societies would vary 

 according to the tastes and plans of the members and directors ; 

 but they would naturally provide for discussions and conversa- 

 tions among themselves, lectures from competent persons, the 

 establishment of a library, and for the collection of models and 

 drawings of domestic animals, models of varieties of fruit, speci- 

 mens of seeds, grasses and grains, and rocks, minerals and soils. 

 The discussions and conversations would be based upon the 



