MR. BRAMANS ADDRESS. 39 



immediate operation. They will be so many lights which 

 will shad their rays not only upon those who are brought in- 

 to immediate contact, but diffuse their beams abroad, illumi- 

 nating remote places, finding their way into obscure recesses,, 

 and in a thousand forms of direct emanation, and reflection 

 and refraction, pouring out their splendor to the utmost limits, 

 of the horizon. 



2. Another advantage is, that they will give new attraction 

 to agriculture as an employment. I have alluded to a class of 

 young men, who seek what they think to be a more elevated- 

 pursuit than the tillage of the field. They have an ambition 

 of rising in life ; and they very naturally conclude that the 

 farther they get from the ground, the higher they fly. Those- 

 who unite a thirst for knowledge, with aspiring views, and 

 some who do not, are inclined to betake themselves to the 

 university ; and the door which admits them within its walls- 

 shuts out the vulgar toils of the field forever. It is a common; 

 observation, that the dullest boy in the family is selected to- 

 follow the father's pursuits, on the ancestral grounds, while the 

 one which appears most vivacious and active is singled out 

 for the college, or some more tasteful and supposed dig- 

 nified vocation. 



Now let the road to the best conducted agriculture be 

 through a scientific institution, let classes of youth go out an- 

 nually from the tuition of learned instructors, versed in those 

 sciences which are connected with the culture of the earth, 

 let them enter upon the business of farming as young men en- 

 ter the professions after graduation at the college, and it would 

 contribute much to raise agriculture to that position which it 

 ought to hold among the other vocations of life ; and many 

 who are now a burden to the professions, and are wrecked in 

 the fluctuations of merchandise and commerce, would be found 

 pursuing a safe, happy, and useful course of life. President 

 Hitchcock saw in some of the agricultural schools which he 

 visited in Europe, young men from families distinguished by 

 their opulence and position in life, habited in frocks and per- 

 forming cheerfully some of the most coarse and uncleanly la- 

 bors connected with the establishments. Perhaps these indi- 



