AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 119 



Grignon, near Paris, with a farm of 750 acres, and with 80 

 pupils, embraces some of the mathematical sciences in its teach- 

 ings, with meteorolgy, mineral chemistry, mineralogy, geology, 

 botany, agricultural zoology, arboriculture, rural architecture, 

 farm accounts, rural economy and law, and a variety of other 

 subjects pertaining to rural affairs. The National Institute, at 

 Versailles, occupies near four thousand acres of land. In Europe 

 more than 350 schools exist for agricultm-al education. We have 

 not an institution of the kind in the United States. Let us hope, 

 that while we run ahead of the world in many departments, we 

 may not fall so far behind in this most important branch of 

 knowledge. Where more than one thousand millions of arable 

 acres spread out their inviting surface to culture, we ought to 

 expect that schools and colleges, where the best mode of cultiva- 

 tion may be taught, will soon take position with the educational 

 institutions of the country. This Institute is performing a great 

 duty, in hastening the day. An Empire, such as the world has 

 never seen, is rising up on this great continent. No language or 

 people, whose representatives are not pressing to its shores. The 

 tumultuous tide of population is surging westward, o'ertops the 

 summits of the mountains, and runs down to the Pacific. An 

 ocean greets us on our right hand, and another on our left. Be- 

 tween these seas, and touching each, is spread the amplest domain 

 of fertility that lies beneath the sun. In this, its earliest state of 

 cultivation, let us do our part towards the inauguration of a sys- 

 tem of education, which shall ultimately entitle this magnificent 

 dominion to be called the hope, the granary, and the garden 

 of the world. 



Turn we now, for the brief remainder of our space, to that 

 other branch of industry and prosperity which comes, especially, 

 within the scope of this Society; for the two main abutments on 

 which the arch of your Institute reposes, are agriculture and 

 manufactures; the latter including those inventions, which are 

 at once the subject and the cause of manuflictures. 



It is well to feel the assurance, that beneath the fertile soil of 

 our own land, there are stowed away infinite resources, which 

 can scarcely be perceptibly grazed by a century of consumption. 

 Day by day new store houses of wealth are uncovered to the light. 

 The metallic and mineral mountains of Pennsylvania are so 

 heavy, that we wonder they do not sink down to the central fires. 

 The red sands of Jersey conceal her veins of iron and her beds 

 of zinc. Maryland displays her seams of coal, and the Virginian 



