AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 521 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 



Dr. Wellington read the following paper : 



This is a more important question, in its relation to the future 

 prosperity of our country, than any question of tariff or banks, 

 of agriculture or manufactures, of social polity, or even of religion; 

 for it includes them all. A cultivated mind, capable of connected 

 and continuous thought — on the one hand, open to the influxes 

 from heaven, and on the other conversant with the uses of know- 

 ledge — if it be in a healthy and susceptible body, will work out for 

 itself, aided by divine influx, better systems of commerce and 

 currency, of politics and religion, than it can receive from other 

 men. 



Eut it is of little moment how accurately the mind may per- 

 ceive, or how well the memory may be storied, if such mind have 

 not a healthy physical organism through which to express itself. 

 In such case it can never do its true work, in its relation to exter- 

 nal nature and to other men. Wise words may be spoken by men 

 with feeble bodies, but they never have their full effect. Concep- 

 tions of immense practical importance daily fall to the ground, 

 like worm-eaten fruit, unripe, for want of physical health to per- 

 fect and express them. 



" Jl sound mind in a healthy body'''' has long been the admitted 

 need of the practical man; and I would add that it should be 

 " watered and warmed by the genial influences of a loving heart J^ 

 Our community have been earnest to develop mental power, yet 

 err even here in their method. But the development of physical 

 perfection we have as a people wholly neglected. And this 

 neglect of the body is not more serious than our utter neglect of 

 the true principles of affectional and spiritual development. We 

 have no system or plan for attaining the highest affectional ex- 

 pression, or securing a proper association of the soul with the 

 means of spiritual growth. 



The end to be sought, in a system of education, or unfolding of 

 human faculties, should be to develop the whole powers of the 

 man; — not by any means to find an artist or mechanic, a clergy- 

 man or dancing-master, a poet or an agriculturist, but by all 

 means to develop the Man. We may secure efl&ciency in an 



