AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 2d 



examination. All works of art are also welcomed to the repos- 

 itory. All these free of expense to the owners. 



As it has been in former days, — and far worse than these — 

 fashionable to consider a human being degraded by labor, (so that 

 the peasant of old times was called a villein^ and not long ago a 

 " clodhopper," because he was obliged to be busy among the clods 

 turned up by the old-fashioned wooden, or, occasionally iron- 

 pointed, miserable bull-nosed plough, not better as a tiller of the 

 ground than the snout of a good sized hog a rooting;) and the 

 mechanic degraded likewise to many degrees below the fashion- 

 able; and as in modern reformed society it has already become 

 fashionable to admire and practise some gardening, some farming, 

 and to praise even hogs and little pigs, we vote this the most glo- 

 rious age yet seen by man; nor can the great classes of men on 

 which the glory and safety of the world depends remain any 

 longer unfashionable. 



Our position is antiquity. The common notion that the ancients 

 were older than ourselves, stands reversed. When the Avorld was 

 young, so were the productions of the world. As progress has 

 shown in millions of forms, the character of plants, of many ani- 

 mals, and of man, all have advanced. The young world of a 

 few thousand years ago has grown to be manly; almost every 

 work of his has advanced with his age, and he must go on. This 

 beautiful globe, which he was appointed to keep, lias never yet 

 been used by him, except in small portions. The greater part 

 of its surface has never felt the civilizing power of man, — the 

 immense continent of Africa yet unexplored — the mighty valley 

 of the Amazon, nearly four thousand miles long, just lifted up to 

 view, under the hands of our Maury. 



Some say, now a days, that we abound in old fogies. Very 

 good ! and they are three thousand years ahead of all those you7ig 

 fogies, whose blunderings through a numl^er of dark, very dark 

 ages, began to vanish before the dawn, and now, the broad noon- 

 day light of letters and the press. 



The farmer is justly entitled to much; but one may put such 

 questions as these to him : Who made your hat, shirt, jacket, 

 coat, wheelbarrow, cart, plough, hoe, scythe, horse-shoes, house, 



