40 MR. PROCTOIl*S ADDRESS. 



lished in our land; to see their utility extolled; and to 

 be induced to consider them the best nurseries for re- 

 publican virtue, and the surest guarantee for the perpe- 

 tuity of our liberties." 



Accurate observers have estimated that more than 

 half the young men from the country who have left the 

 rural pursuits of their fathers, for the more fascinating 

 and promising employments of the city, have either been 

 ensnared in the nets of vice there spread at every cor- 

 ner, or been made frantic with the visionary dreams of 

 speculation, so that before the meridian of life, ruin has 

 been their destiny. Have we any reason to expect bet- 

 ter things in future ? Is there such an improvement in 

 the moral condition of our cities as to allay our fears ? 

 If heretofore, one half have been lost, what is now the 

 prospect ? Let the wise parent say which is the better, 

 so to educate his sons that they may settle down around 

 him, substantial, useful citizens, or send them to the 

 cities to seek their fortune with the equal chance of ter- 

 minating their career in infamy. 



I cannot forbear quoting a sentence on this subject 

 from an address delivered before the Berkshire Agricul- 

 tural Society, in Oct. 1829, by an authority as high as 

 any other in the Commonwealth — and as well entitled 

 to respect. Says the orator,* "It should thus be one 

 of the first and most important objects of the farmer, 

 after having familiarized his son to habits of industry, 

 and instructed him in those branches of labor fitted to 

 boyhood and early youth, to provide for him the means 

 of a regular and systematic education, and when he shall 

 have finished his course of education, instead of indulging 

 the delusive hope of deriving honor or success by entering 

 into those learned professions which are already crowded 

 to overflowing, and dividing the profits of a dunning let- 

 ter with some hungry brother of the bar, or mounting the 

 same steed with some half starved disciple of /E.sculapi- 

 us, let him return to the pursuits of early life and become 

 the industrious, intelligent, and independent farmer."' 



* George N. Briggs, Esq., — the present Governor of the Commonwealth. 



