a farmer’s education. 
115 
life. Ignorance seems to have gone hand in hand 
with the cultivation of the soil. The generality 
of mankind hold the opinion, that to be a farmer 
requires little or no knowledge, and frequently, 
when all other things fail, a farmer’s life is taken 
up as a last resource. Is a youth stupid at his 
books? What is the remedy? Why, male a 
farmer of him. Who has not heard of this pana¬ 
cea. for dullness and stupidity ? A youth once 
destined for a farmer is destined to a life of ignor¬ 
ance. Bodily labor is considered as incompatible 
with all mental acquirements. This is the dark 
cloud which has overshadowed a profession of all 
others the most honorable. It is this dark cloud 
which the town superintendents can and must dis¬ 
pel. The light of science must be allowed to 
dawn upon the farmer’s intellect. As the rising 
sun is justly held the grandest object of the visible 
world, so another sun, second only to that noble 
orb, must shine upon and illumine the youthful 
intellect of those destined to cultivate the soil. 
This sun must take its rise in our district and 
common schools, under the guidance and influence 
of the town superintendents. Who then can deny 
the importance and responsibility of those duties, 
and that they should be performed by men duly 
impressed with such responsibility ? The laws 
and regulations of civil society as they here exist, 
are in general well adapted to protect the rights 
and secure all proper enjoyments to the great mass 
of our population, and a failure in this respect is 
entirely owing to the people themselves, who, in¬ 
flamed by party feelings, do not elect the best men 
to discharge the duties required by the laws. En¬ 
trust to a farmer the duties of a sailor, to a sailor 
the work of a manufacturer, to a lawyer the work 
of a farmer, to a rogue the duties of a clergyman, 
and what would be the condition of commerce, 
manufactures, agriculture, and religion? Apply 
this rule to the present education of farmers. 
Neither the teachers nor the books employed for 
the purpose are of the right kind. There are not 
now in existence proper primary or elementary 
class-books for the instruction of those destined to 
be farmers. 
Go into all or any of those district schools and 
examine a class in geography or astronomy, and 
you will find almost every question in the class- 
book used for the purpose, well and correctly an¬ 
swered, and the boys are in fact good geographers 
and astronomers. This is all right, and it is 
knowledge they should have ; but ask them to 
name the bones composing the different parts of 
the head, body, or foot of a horse, a cow, or any 
other animal, how would both teacher and scholar 
stare at you ? Neither politeness nor fear could 
restrain them from laughing at one they would 
consider as little better than a fool or madman. 
And why is this? Simply because no such mat¬ 
ters are taught or ever mentioned in the school. 
What is geography ? The anatomy of the earth. 
What is astronomy ? The anatomy of the heav¬ 
ens. These are both taught and well learned; 
and yet the anatomy of the human body, or of ani¬ 
mals, is never thought of. All pertaining to this 
and the ordinary terms used by men of science 
when writing on this and other Subjects essential 
to a farmer’s education, are never taught nor heard 
of in the schools. The terms irr anatomy, the 
names and uses of the several bones and mus¬ 
cles ; the terms in geology, agricultural chemistry, 
and mechanical philosophy, &c., can as easily be 
learned by boys as the various divisions of the 
earth and heavens, and the names of the different 
countries and rivers on the globe. 
The words promontory, isthmus, meridian, equa¬ 
tor, &c., in geography, the words Aries, Pleiades, 
Ursa Major, &c., in astronomy, are not more easily 
learned or comprehended by children, than the 
words vertebra, flexors, pastern, stifle, molars,. 
&c., would be in anatomy; or the words oxygen, 
hydrogen, nitrates, sulphates, &c., in chemistry, 
or the terms granite, hornblend, feldspar, quartz, 
&c., in geology. The New York society for the 
diffusion of useful knowledge have, I believe, ex¬ 
amined and recommended several text-books for 
the use of the common schools, but none of them 
as far as I have seen, are of the character I should 
consider quite as requisite for the elementary edu¬ 
cation of the young farmer. If proper text-books on 
those subjects were compiled for the use of district 
schools, as they have been in geography, history, 
and astronomy, by question and answer, young 
people would soon become familiar with the tech¬ 
nical words of science, which, being well under¬ 
stood, would then cease to be considered repulsive. 
Scientific words as they are now considered would 
become words of every-day use. Pedantry would 
cease to exist, and things would be known and 
called by their scientific names as readily as they 
are now by others. I must not here be under¬ 
stood as disparaginga knowledge of either history, 
geography, arithmetic, or astronomy—far from it. 
I consider all this knowledge as absolutely neces¬ 
sary ; but I believe that with proper text-books, 
there is ample time to acquire a sufficient elemen¬ 
tary knowledge of all those. But even were there 
not, I consider the entire exclusion of the other 
branches I have named as fundamentally wrong. 
I would sacrifice some knowledge in astronomy if 
it were replaced by equal knowledge in geology, 
chemistry, agriculture, or anatomy—so of history 
and of geography, and mathematics. Neither 
would I require young boys to learn by heart 
whole pages of the speeches of Cicero, Demos¬ 
thenes, or other great orators, and keep them ut¬ 
terly ignorant of the elements and technical terms 
of those sciences by which they are to acquire 
their future support and respectability. I would 
not educate as great orators and statesmen, boys 
who in after life are to become practical farmers. 
It is true the vanity of parents may be gratified 
when listening to their young Ciceros, Demos¬ 
thenes, Pitts, Websters, &c., and their ambitious 
fancy may give such shape and reality to their 
future man. Gazing into futurity, they may, by 
anticipation, delight on their destined ornament to 
some of the learned professions. But without dis¬ 
turbing those hallowed and pleasing aspirations of 
a parent, I would simply say, elevate the farmer’s 
knowledge to be equal to that required in other 
professions, and all a parent’s hope may then be 
realized in a farmer’s son, well learned in his pros 
fession. 
