1226 STATISTICS OF AGRICULTURE. Paki- IV 



Chap. II. 



Improvement of Agriculture^ by the better Education of those loho are engaged in it as a 



Profession. 



7930. Bi/ education is generally understood that portion of knowledge which is 

 obtained at schools; but in a more extended sense (as Mills observes), it may be 

 defined the means which are employed to render man competent for purr,uing 

 the part which he undertakes to perfonn in life, with" increased satisfaction to himself 

 apd others. Education may thus be considered as extending to every thing which 

 c^jierates on the body or mind, from the earliest periods of our existence to the final 

 ^ilrnction of life. It is unnecessary here to embrace the subject in its full extent; 

 but we shall oflTer some remarks on the education of practical men in general, on 

 the professiortAl Witication of an ^riculturist, and on the general conduct and economy 



of n}S,llfr.j{-if5^ ,Mm\i>\ '(rt ^1% ,i'i-)i.jv>t ,i\n ,\f>\v\'n^^4>j)ii ,v,"<"5''^'^ - 



Sect. I, Diegree 'df ITnowledge v)hich may be attained by Practical Men, and general 

 Powers of tlie human Mind as to Attainments. 



7931. The kind and degree of education that we think ought to be given to every human being in this 

 and in every country, and in every state of civilisation, may be thus defined : All the knowledge and 

 jiccorapUshments that a child's body or mind, and the state of knowledge and the art of teaching at the 

 time, will admit, previously to the age of puberty ; giving preference to those branches of knowledge con- 

 sidered the most useful, and those accomplishments and manners considered the most humanising, 

 by the wise and good of the age. It seems unreasonable to employ ^ny child in aiding to procure the 

 means of its subsistence, or that of its parents, before the age of puberty. Previously to that age, by 

 Aleans of infant schools, and of the adoption of the various improvements that have been recently made 

 in modes of teaching, all that is worth knowing may be taught more effectually than common reading, 

 writing, and arithmetic are, during the same time, by the common methods. Man, so trained and 

 instructed, and living under an enlightened government, will become as different an animal from what 

 he is at present, even in Britain, as the most enlightened modern moralist and philosopher of Europe 

 is from an African savage. " It is not necessary," says Lequinio, writing in 1792, " to render an agricul- 

 tural labourer a learned man ;" but 1 am well assured, from my own experience, that the knowledge of 

 every thing useful, and of much that is agreeable, both in knowledge and manners, is perfectly consistent 

 with a life of labour in the fields. But hitherto the education of the labouring classes in the country has 

 proved rather an obstacle to the developement of reason than otherwise. Eight or ten years are employed 

 m filling the head of a child with chimeras and prejudices, which twenty years of study will scarcely suc- 

 ceed in entirely rooting out. It remains for national philosophical institutions to destroy this national 

 evil ; and we shall one day have under the thatched cottage of the country hamlet thinking men endowed 

 with reason, and capable at once of taking a part in the political and moral affairs of their country, and 

 holding the plough or guiding the cart on their own farm. " II faut," says this admirable writer, " que 

 les premieres letjons soient I'apprentissage des droits de I'homme, et qu'ils soient enseign(LS sans aucun 

 melange des perfides principes du fanatisme et des fruits barbares des gothiques prejuges, de quelqu' espece 

 que ce puisse ^tre. Les notions de la raison et du bou sens tombent sous tous les intellects. Les droits de 

 I'homme interessent tous les individus, et I'esprit et le cceur seront bientot d'accord pour s'en faire une 

 science imperissable ; graves une fois, je le repute, ils ne s'effaceront jamais; ils se congoivent avec 

 aisance, et ils se fixeront bien plus solidement que ces antiques assertions donnees sur la foi d'autrui, et 

 transmises a travers les t^nebres des si^cles les plus obscurs ; assertions ridicules, et qui, pour la plupart, 

 n'ont seulement pas en leur la simple vraisemblance ; ils se fixeront, sur-tout, parcequ'ils seront aisi^ment 

 et avantageusement compares k toutes ces faussettes miraculeuses et foUes dont le n^ant alors dclatera 

 pour tous, et parcequ'ils seront encore plus avantageusement mis en parall^le avec ces mystferes absurdes 

 <iue I'homme no-pouvait admettre qu'en rejetant I'evidence, et en se depouillant totalement de son intel- 

 ligence et de sa raison. C'cst par ce simple enseignement que s'elfevera tout d'un coup dans nos campagnes 

 une espece raisonnante et libre. Sortie, par cette creation morale, du cahos tenebreux, et de I'existence 

 l(^thargique ou, depuis le commencement des siMes, elle croupissait sous lejoug de tousles impudens 

 habiles qui se permettaient de la dominer, nous la verrons une race nouvelle, intelligente et hardie, laisser 

 tin espace incommensurable entr'elle et les gt^n^rations qui I'ont preced^e." {Les Prejuges detruits, par 

 J. M. Lequinio. Paris, 1792. Parochial Institutions ; or, an Outline of a Plan for a National Edu. 

 cation Establishfnent, Sgc. : and Des Etablissemens pour ^Education Publique en Baviere, dans le Wur- 

 iemberg, et dans le Pays de Bade.) 



79S2. A high and equal degree qf education has some powerful advocates in North America, and, it is 

 thought by many, will, at no distant period, be adopted in several of the states. The New York Daily Sentinel 

 and the Working Man's Advocate are two of several newspapers which support what are called ' working 

 men's measures." Among these the first and most important is a " republican education, free for all, 

 equal for all, and at the expense of all ; conducted under the guardianship of the state, at the expense of 

 the state ; embracing every branch of useful instruction, moral, intellectual, and operative, and extending 

 to the entire protection, maintenance, and guidance of children and youth, male and female, without dis- 

 tinction of class, sect, or party, or reference to any of the arbitrary distinctions of the existing state of 

 society." {Six Essays on Public Education, New York, 1830 ; Cooper's Lectures on Political Econojny, as 

 quoted in the Spectator, Dec. 4. 1830 : atid Gard. Mag. vol. vii.) 



7933. This high and equal degree of education we consider to be as much the birthright of a child in a 

 community where there is a high degree of civilisation, as food and clothes are its birthright in the rudest 

 state of society ; because, without it, a man or woman is ushered into society without a fair chance of being 

 able to procure those means of subsistence and of happiness which belong to human nature under the given 

 degree of civilisation ; in short, without a fair chance of making the most of life. To introduce an igno- 

 rant youth into a highly civilised country, under the supposition that he could obtain the requisite degree 

 of prosperity and happiness, would be more absurd than to turn an educated child into a country of 

 savages. This is one view of the subject, and it is a view on which all who can affbrd the expense act 

 with respect to their own children. If we regard the subject in the light of humanity, and the symjiathy 

 of one part of society with another, this principle will equally dictate the duty of bestowing, as far as 

 practicable, that good on others which we feel to be a good in ourselves, and which we are convinced 

 would add to the general happiness. Viewed as a matter of public policy, and considering that the grand 

 object of every government ought to be, with reference to its subjects, their happiness and prosperity ; 

 and, with reference to other governments, its own stability ; reason dictates the use of the most important 

 means for gaining these ends ; and that it would be prudent, no less than just, in government so to legis- 

 late, as that every individual subject should have the degree of education above defined. Let none. 



