02 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



to profit by all they saw and heard and did. 

 They would be as good farmers however as 

 our sons, who come home with the title of 

 M. D., are doctors. Take two young men 

 of equal moral intellectual parts, let one of 

 them learn all that is taught in the medi- 

 cal schools, and the other learn nothing at 

 all of m:-dicine — which of the two would 

 you trust your life with, it you were obliged 

 to choose between them ? There can be 

 but one answer. Would not the same be j 

 the case between two young men of sim-j 

 ilar characters in all respects ; the one j 

 taught all that is embraced in the synop- 

 sis I have read to you, and the other taught 

 nothing of agriculture? Which of these two 

 would you take to manage your farm, at the 

 same wages? Which of these two would 

 manage his own farm more successfully, 

 and which would be the better, the more 

 useful, the happier farmer after ten years 

 of practise ? I think there can be but one 

 answer to these questions. I grant you 

 that many would attend the agricultural 

 school, and never become farmers even by 

 subsequent experience. But so too, many 

 without education never become farmers, 

 from want of proper moral qualities. Ag- 

 ricultural lectures cannot and will not make 

 our sons industrious, and honest and faith- 

 ful. These and other virtues must be 

 learned at home-" gremio ac sinu matris." 

 They can be learned no where else. When 

 learned then they generally follow a man 

 through all his days, make him successful 

 in any walk of life, and will make him none 

 the less so because he is educated. 



I ought not to dismiss the subject with- 

 out noticing one objection to the proposed 

 professorship which seems to me to be 

 very forcible. It is this. That the Legis- 

 lature ought to do the thing, and not im- 

 pose it on us — that the State has estab- 

 lished the law school and the medical 

 schools at the University, and ought to es- 

 tablish the agricultural school too. There 

 is much force in this view of the matter ; 

 and if I saw any hope of the Legislature 

 doing what it ought to do, T would wait any 

 reasonable time. But I have no such 

 hope. Every dollar in the State Treasury 

 is pressingly needed for other things ; and 

 if it were not, I do not believe the Legis- 

 lature would give any thing for this pur- 

 pose. The University already draws $15,- 

 000 from the State annually — and although 

 this is less than ^ of the money given 



to our Lunatic Asylums, yet there are 

 many who think it too much, and would 

 be disposed to make it less rather than 

 more. Farmers feed the country ; but 

 they do not govern it ; we bear the fleece 

 but others shear it. If we kept the keys 

 of the public rise into which we annually 

 pour so much treasure we would probably 

 do many things which will not be done. 

 Shall we go again, as we have gone be- 

 fore, and beg for this money, in yonder 

 capitol, when, if things were as they should 

 be, we might command ? ]t does not be- 

 come the master to be a beggar at the door 

 of his slave. We are rich, let us be inde- 

 pendent — we have the means, let us do our 

 own work, and ask no favours, least of all 

 let us ask them, where farmers have been 

 so often repulsed, and will be repulsed 

 again as often as they go thither. But 

 there is honor to be lost or won in this 

 matter. If the Legislature should, in some 

 moment of unexpected sanity, give the 

 money necessary for this work, whose 

 would the glory be, ours or theirs ? Who 

 would rise up in after years to do us rev- 

 erence and bless our names ? What mon- 

 ument can we rear to commemorate the 

 noble spirit of liberality which in a single 

 night filled our coffers to overflowing, like 

 a school of agriculture ? Will any one 

 say, "I see no honour in it?" Then I 

 know not what honour is. Why is it that 

 no citizen of the United States can pro- 

 nounce the name of John Smithson irrev- 

 erently ? Why is it that if he still lived 

 and should enter here, and I would say to 

 you, ''There he is — behold the man" 

 you would all rise up to do him rever- 

 ence ? Yet we know that man only in 

 one act of munificence — we know him 

 only as a stranger, who loved knowledge, 

 and gave of his substance to promote its 

 diffusion among men. No honour in this 

 thing? Then let Jack Falstaff teach us 

 honour hereafter. I have heard that there 

 are men in Virginia whose annual income 

 is more than the sum required to establish 

 this Professorship. If it be so, and I were 

 of them, night's candles should not burn 

 out, before I would give this money my- 

 self ; and thereby build me a monument 

 of glory, against which the storms of time 

 might beat in vain. 



Many plans have been suggested by 

 which our Society may accelerate the march 

 of Agricultural progress with its funds I 



