Ko. 216.] 631 



nary concerns, whether of individuals or of nations, matters of the 

 liighest importance are first attended to, and all other interests in the 

 order of their relative importance. But our government has pursued 

 a course in direct opposition to this self-evident policy, by sustain- 

 ing interests of secondary consideration, to the neglect of the one 

 that is of paramount importance, and from which all others proceed. 



Two causes appear to me to have co-operated mainly in producing 

 this extraordinary state of things: first, the ignorance of a great ma- 

 jority of the transcendant advantages which the lights of modern 

 science have thrown upon our pathways; and secondly, that control- 

 ling and deluded attachment and admiration for the so-called learned 

 professions, so common in the United States. Presenting a broad 

 avenue, and one of ready access to the greatest profits and the high- 

 est personal distinctions, a great majority of the young men of genius 

 and enterprise in this country have embarked in the study of law or 

 physic, to the almost total neglect of the more profound practical 

 learning derived from the study of the natural sciences. 



But I do honestly believe that the magic influence by which 

 empty professional titles have enchained the admiration of mankind, 

 is gradually giving way. That the star of their glory so long in 

 the ascendant, is destined ere iong to wane towards the horizon. 

 That the lights of science, diffused as they are likely soon to be, 

 will enable the great body of the people to pierce the veil, and op- 

 pose the fraudulent pretensions of this self-constituted aristocracy, 

 with as much certainty as they now do those commonly prefaced to 

 the label of a quack nostrum. 



The day I trust, is not far distant, when agriculture and the mechan- 

 ic arts win be taught as sciences by learned professors, as Latin and 

 ■Greek now are, at the public expeUvSe. Illustrated by the lights of 

 Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Geology, Mineralogy, Animal and 

 Vegetable Physiology, Civil Engineering, Rural Architecture, and 

 practical Surveying, its votaries must take rank with the literati of 

 the age, and prove themselves capable, with such advantages, of in- 

 creasing the knowledge of mankind to an almost unlimited extent, 

 in the great business of supplying food and raiment for the human 

 race. , 



Nathan C. Ely, of Williamsburgh, L. I. A communication from 

 him was read, liberally offering, gratuitously, the association, 500 

 bushels of pulverized charcoal, for the purpose of testing its value in 

 agriculture, and a vote of thanks from the club was unanimously 

 offered. 



