W. S. KING'S ADDRESS. 629 



vice to pnuishment The physician acqxdres from books and 

 observation, the practice of the healing art. \«rhich renders him 

 a minister of mercy in om- dwellings. The s{>ecial servant of 

 GJod, whose errand is to " warn men everywhere to repent." 

 and to comfort the parting soul about to wing its way on a 

 dim and tmrried jonmey. learns to imderstand and expomid 

 His will by a carefnl and c-ontinned pemsal of the writings of 

 the good and the learned. The shipwright, before he is able 

 to launch upon the deep those models of marine architecture, 

 which, whether proj>elled by sail or steam, have alike carried 

 our starry flaff in triumph on the sea. has been apprenticed to 

 a finished master of his craft, and has pored, dreary hours 

 Ion?, over models, and lines, and rules laid down in books. 

 The painter, who sketches with magic touch the glo\ring land- 

 scape, or the "human form divine." has prepared himself for 

 those light and apparently careless touches that reveal the 

 master, by previotis toil and study. The mason, who rears 

 your house-wails, and spans the swift stream with the striding 

 arch, has had his year? of apprenticeship and study. And 

 why not, then, the farmer ? Why. alone of men. is he who 

 works in the laboratory of nattire. and has to do with the 

 secrets of animal and vegetable life ; on whom the world de- 

 pends for its subsistence, — why is he. alone, to be piloted in 

 his operations by the scarcely-visible footsteps of his fore- 

 fathers, aided by guess work ? 



The object of agricultural education is to make practical 

 farmers. And here, at the very outset, we differ — wide apart 

 as the antipodes — from many of our calling, as to what consti- 

 tutes a practical farmer. By many, he only is called such, 

 who works daily with his own hands. His dress comes into 

 the calculation too : a black broadcloth coat of the prevailing 

 fashion would be destructive to his claims : a patent leather 

 shoe, or a glove, would ruin his reputation, however great 

 might be his knowledge. A hand hard and horny as a horse's 

 hoof is a sine qua non. Mark how extremes meet. The 

 Broadway dandy, who. with wasp waist and mincing eait 

 lounges along the shady sidewalk, and the brawny farmer, 

 who dares both sun and snow, are alike vain of their hands I 

 But the hands of the one, to be a /<i mode, must resemble a 

 nether mill-stone, while the other s rival the velvety softness of 



