10 



children, is it not better to use a portion of the crops for this 

 purpose, rather than to consume the whole upon the body ? 



When you have this opportunity to exchange some of the 

 products of the soil for mental food, exchange liberally. The 

 farmer may, yes he does, need a different course of study from 

 that required for the professional man, the mechanic, the 

 engineer, the architect, the painter, or the sculptor. Massa- 

 chusetts has recognized this fact and has, to her credit, her 

 Agricultural College, which is doing great work for the farmer? 

 and will continue to advance his interests, increase his prod- 

 ucts and lessen his labors. 



Thomas Jefferson, the firm friend of agriculture, as well as 

 the philosopher and statesman, appreciated the necessity of a 

 more liberal education for the agriculturist. He said of 

 agriculture, " it is a science of the very first order. It counts 

 among its handmaids the most respectable sciences, such as 

 chemistry, natural philosophy, mechanics, mathematics gener- 

 ally, natural history, botany. In every college and university, 

 a professorship of agriculture, and the class of its students 

 might be honored as the first young men closing their academ- 

 ical education with this as the crown of all other sciences, 

 fascinated witli its solid charms, and at a time when they are 

 to choose an occupation, instead of crowding the other classes, 

 would return to the farms of their fathers, their own, or those 

 of others, and replenish and invigorate a calling now lan- 

 guishing under contempt and apprehension. 



The charitable schools, instead of storing their «pupils with 

 a lore which the present state of society does not call for, 

 converted into schools of agriculture, might restore them to 

 that branch, qualified to enrich and honor themselves, and to 

 increase the productions of the nation instead of consuming 

 them." 



