MASS. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 763 



There are other reasons, of a moral and psychological char- 

 acter, which urge us to give the young a much more extended 

 course of study on physical subjects, than they have hitherto 

 received. Nothing, so well as the study of such subjects, gives 

 them a habit of accurate observation, and careful deduction 

 from facts, and saves them from hasty and unsound conclu- 

 sions. 



Nothing so contributes to that minute attention to the phe- 

 nomena that we witness around us, by which we are daily and 

 hourly accumulating useful knowledge. 



Nothing so effectually calms the passions and leads to habits 

 of thought and sobriety, as the constant presence of the beau- 

 tiful, the grand, and the wonderful in nature, and the con- 

 sciousness that there are laws working and controlling, and 

 guiding and modifying all things around us and in us, and to 

 which we ourselves are amenable. 



Then, again, we are constantly taught lessons of trust, of 

 hope, and of benevolence, by observing the course of nature, 

 and the operation of the laws of Providence, and should be led 

 to their exercise in our own lives. Tn fact, nothing so directly 

 tends to teach us reverence for the Great Author of nature as 

 the study of his works, in the exercise of a proper spirit. 



These, then, are some of the qualifications which the young 

 farmer should possess. How he shall acquire them is a much 

 more difficult matter to determine. A few points will be 

 mentioned. 



There are, undoubtedly, good jewellers, carpenters, printers 

 and farmers, who were not engaged in either of these occupa- 

 tions in early life ; but they became so from an unusual taste 

 and aptness for the profession of their choice. The general 

 result is, that those who have not been familiar in their youth 

 with the business in which they are engaged, rarely distinguish 

 themselves as good workmen, or accumulate property in its 

 prosecution. 



If this be so, it becomes a matter of the first importance that 

 the farmer shall have been initiated into all the operations of 

 the barn, the garden, and the field, in early life. 



Like those of the printer at his case, or the smith at his 

 forge, if the manipulations of the farm are once thoroughly 

 learned in youth, they will ever afterwards be familiar. 



