200 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER 



DEC. II, 1S39. 



From tliB New York Ohserver. 



DR. HUMPHREY'S THOUGHTS ON EDUCA- 

 TION. 



(^uidificalions of Teachers. 

 (Coatinued.) 



A fifth qualification for the highly responsible 

 office of school teacher is the faculty of government . 

 Every school as well as every family must be gov- 

 erned. How the prerogative sliould be exercised, 

 we will inquire in another place. But I repeat 

 that every school must bo governed. No system 

 of popular education can be sustained, or ought to 

 be sustained, where tlie scholars are the masters. 

 We send our children to school to be under gov- 

 ernors as well as tutors ; to learn obedience, as well 

 as to be ably and faithfully instructed in the ele- 

 ments of useful knowledge. 



In the first place, their own best good requires 

 it. The boy that is allowed to do as he pleases in 

 school, is not the boy to apply his mind diligently 

 and successfully to his studies. He has too many 

 other things on his hands. Arid what is true of 

 one individual, is true of the whole sciiool. Where 

 there is little or no order and subordination, not one 

 in ten will be disposed to make the most of bis 

 time and opportunities, if he could; and not one in 

 the school, be it ever so large, will be able to if he 

 would. How can he ? Want of government, is 

 but another name for universal disorder. And 

 where lawless confusion reigns, where there is ev- 

 ery thing to distract the thoughts and nothing to fi,x 

 them, how canyon look for study and improvement ? 

 It is only where the discordant elements of a dis- 

 trict are brought together and subjected to a con- 

 trolling central power, and every thing falls into its 

 proper place, and is kept theie, that any education- 

 al system will succeed. The school must first be 

 hushed to silence ; every scholar must have his 

 place and his task assigned him, and the question 

 of entire subject! m to rules must be settled, before 

 there can be any real study. This being admitted, 

 it follows, that you could hardly inliict a greater 

 personal injury upon your children, than by send- 

 ing them to an ungoverned school : for they would 

 not only lose their time, but contract habits of in- 

 subordination, which would expose them to a thou- 

 sand indiscretions and dangers in after life. 



In the ne.\t place, the great interest which pa- 

 rents have in the education and good conduct of 

 their children, requires that the schools to which 

 they send them, should be well governed. If chil- 

 dren are not kept in proper subjection at school, it 

 will be far more difiicult to control them at home. 

 What the parent does one day to secure implicit 

 obedience in his family, may be counteracted and 

 nullified by a ruinous laxness in the school, the 

 next. How often has this counteraction been felt 

 and deplored. And besides, are not "the children 

 which God hath given ns,'" "bone of our bone and 

 flesh of our flesh" .' Can chey lose their educa- 

 tion or any part of it for want of proper discipline, 

 and we not suflfer with them.' Can they become 

 restive under the wholesome restraints of society, 

 in consequence of not having been kept under due 

 subjection in school — can they violate the laws of 

 the scale, and suffer the penalty, and we not smart 

 for it ourselves ? It were impossible. 



It seems hardly necessary to add, once more, 

 that the whole community has a deep stake in the 

 government of its common schools. What it wints 

 for its highest security and prosperity, is the great- 



est possible number of good and enlightened citi- 

 zens — men who having been accustomed to subor- 

 dination in the family and the school, are prepared 

 to submit, as a matter of course, to all the needful 

 restraints of civil society. In well governed schools 

 you find all the elements of well governed states, 

 and witiiout these essential elements in the former, 

 who will answer for a cheerful and sacred regard 

 to the laws in the latter? But who are to be the 

 governors in our elementary and higher schools ? 

 The teachers, certainly, if anybody. We call them 

 school -master*, and so they ought to be. But how 

 can a man who has no talent for government, hold 

 the reins with a strong and steady hand ? He may 

 stamp and threaten : he may ferule and flog, and 

 thus make trangressors occasionally afraid of his 

 terrors ; but if there is nothing in his mind to sway 

 the minds of his pupils ; if he does not know how 

 to bring them into subjection by some better influ- 

 ence than mere dread of punishment, he cannot be 

 said to govern. There may be, and often is, a 

 great deal of severity where there is very little gov- 

 ernment. The faculty of which I am speaking 

 may doubtless be very much improved by experi- 

 ence. But some very estimable persons never can 

 establish and maintain a proper degree of authori- 

 ty in the school-room, and therefore ought at once 

 to witlidraw and give place to those who can. 



APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF 

 THE ROTATION OF CROPS. 



There is scarcely any condition of agriculture, 

 in the least degree advanced, or improved in opera- 

 tion, which is not based on some rude system of ro- 

 tation, or succession of crops in a certain order. — 

 It has long been known and almost universally act- 

 ed upon, that, as to grain crops at least, the same 

 kind could not be produced successively on the 

 same land, without a rapid decline of product, from 

 some other cause or causes besides the more lessen- 

 ing of the fertility of the land. For when land so 

 treated and so reduced in product was put under 

 some other crop, the product of such other crop 

 was greatly better. Therefore, except in the ear- 

 liest and rudest cultivation of a new country, no 

 where is there to be found cultivated the same grain 

 crop for many years in succession, without the in- 

 terposition of some other crop, of other grain or 

 of grass. Cotton is the only tilled large crop in 

 this country which has not been alternated with 

 other cultivation, and which is tended (or years to- 

 gether on the same land. This practice is recom- 

 mended by the clean condition of the land required 

 by that crop, and which its repeated culture se- 

 cures. But it may well be doubted whether the 

 diseases and enormous losses of product in this 

 crop, are not to be ascribed to its being continued 

 so^ long on the same land. 



But though every fanner uses something of a ro- 

 tation, still the most usual courses of crops are very 

 imperfect end highly objectionable; and there is 

 scarcely any scheme of rotatioji which does not of- 

 fend greatly, in some of its features, against the cor- 

 rect principles or theory of rotation. 



The fact of the certain and rapid decline of pro- 

 duct of any one crop repeated year after year on 

 the, same land, was universally conceded, and the 

 practice generally abandoned, by nractical cultiva- 

 tors, without their troubling- themselves to investi- 

 gate the causes. Theoretical and scientific agri- 

 culturists have entertained diflercnt views at diffe- 

 rent times, and each has had its reign. Formerly 



it was supposed, and generally admitted, that eac 

 plant drew from the soil some food peculiar to i 

 self, and thus rapidly exhausted the soil of this i 

 own peculiar nutriment, while there still remaine 

 unconsumed, and in abundance, the food to suppo 

 plants <if other kinds. But though this theory pas 

 ed current long, without dispute, because it serve 

 to explain the effects produced, it was gradual! 

 weakened, and finally overthrown, by later and moi 

 correct views of the nature of the food of plants, 

 is but within the last few years that a new and o] 

 posite doctrine has been started, which is at lea 

 the most in fashion at present, if not the most gei 

 erally received. This is founded on the discoverii 

 of Macaire, Do Candolle and Towers, of the excr 

 lions of plants by their roots ; and the inferem 

 thence drawn that the rejected excrement is fit 

 serve as food for other plants, but is useless, if ni 

 absolutely hurtful to the kind from which it wi 

 thrown off. And hence also would follow the !!■ 

 cessity for a change of crops. 



Without denying or advocating either of the; 

 doctrines, I will yet add to whatever may be tl 

 main cause which calls for a frequent change 

 crops, another cause, of at least very considerab 

 operation, and which has been already named : 

 the first of these numbers. This is, that evei 

 plant is subject to be preyed on by its own peculi; 

 tribes of insects, which are continued to be suppli{ 

 by their proper food, and favored by the still co; 

 tinning circumstances of the field, and therefo: 

 are increased continually in numbers, and in the 

 destructive ravages, so long as the crop which ft 

 them, and the circumstances which favored thei 

 remain unchanged ; and that these insects must 1 

 destroyed or greatly reduced in their numbers ai 

 powers of mischief, by a total change of the grow 

 and of the treatment and condition of the field.- 

 Perhaps these depredators may be invisible, fro 

 their minute sizes, and yet so numerous as to cau 

 any extent of injury that is found to be suffered 1 

 unchanged tillage of any one crop, and which 

 avoided by convertible husbandry or a rotation 

 crops. 



But luckily, though the causes of such evils rar 

 be uncertain, the eftects and the remedies are n 

 therefore unknown. And the observations of boi 

 scientific and practical agriculturists have serve 

 to establish what have been termed the principl 

 of the rotation of crops, which furnish a body i 

 rules by wliich to test every particular scheme, at 

 show its advantages and defects. But thoug 

 most of these principles and the rules founded c 

 them are universally received, stjil perhaps evci 

 writer and reasoncr upon rotations differs in son; 

 important respect from all others; and my ow 

 views, and still more the rules and applicatior 

 founded thereon, whicJi have been and will be o: 

 fercd in these numbers, have no authority, either i 

 previous precepts or examples of practice. Th 

 adoption of the abovo named and new reason for 

 rotation of crops, would alone require the introdue 

 tion of new rules in determining a proper order < 

 succession, and a considerable departure from th 

 stated rules prescribed by any previous writer o 

 this subject. But though the principles and rule 

 laid down by every modern and well informed agri 

 culturiat may liave differed in some respect fror 

 all others, and even if all were wrong as to th 

 main cause of the necessity of changing crops, stil 

 all were right in the main, in their general precept 

 and rules of ordinary procedure. 



But though many scientific writers have lar 



