76 
AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION.-NO 2. 
AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION.—No. 2. 
There is no necessity for a nation of learned 
men, to make a great people. The very founders 
of this republic were, almost without exception, 
men of a very plain education; not one of them 
was what is generally called a scholar. Yet, 
where are we to look, throughout the world, for 
examples of purer patriotism, of more integrity, 
or of a more thorough, rigid, and a higher sense of 
duty? Each one had gone through a course 
of good, old English morality, with a large num¬ 
ber of them made sterner and more serious b^ 
the strictness of puritanism; but to all giving 
that unwavering resolution, that determination 
to surmount every difficulty, at whatever hazard 
or cost, which can only go with the conscious¬ 
ness of being right, and only belong to high 
principle and lofty virtue. The great crisis in 
which they were engaged, could not have been 
carried through by men of loose morals. The 
whole movement depended on the confidence 
the people of the country felt in the disinterested 
integrity of these, their leaders; and if, for a 
single moment, this had been shaken, the whole 
object would have been blasted, and the found¬ 
ing of this republic been indefinitely thrown 
back. These men were as remarkable for their 
moral qualities, if not more so, as their intellec¬ 
tual ones. Though not meanly educated, they 
had, with the exception of a few wealthy men 
of the south, by no m ^ans received a finished 
education. Yet, could they have had a better? 
The truth of Shakspeare’s thought, that “ hard¬ 
ness is of hardiness, the mother,” has never been 
better exemplified, than in these men. Inured 
to toil, both by sea and land, with habits of in¬ 
dustry, and the noblest of all qualifications for 
usefulness, the habit of self-dependence, there 
could not have been found, and there never has 
existed, men better fitted for the period and its 
eventful exigencies, than these patriots of the 
American Revolution. 
The inference drawn, and which I wish to be 
drawn from these remarks, is—not that learning 
of the highest order unfits a man for his duties 
as a citizen, or that it disqualifies him for high 
action or conduct, in critical and dangerous cir¬ 
cumstances ; or that it enervates the mind; or 
that it prepares a man for the battle of brains 
alone. It would be unwise and absurd, to en¬ 
courage even a remote idea, that the greatest of 
Heaven’s gifts—fine faculties, and these finely 
directed—were to disable a man from the ablest 
efforts of patriotism. It is as much the duty of 
a citizen, and one who loves his country, to 
devote himself to the development of the myste¬ 
ries of nature and of thought, as to those affairs 
that bring him into a more direct sympathy with 
his fellow men. There is as much lofty patriot¬ 
ism in the exertions of genius, in the silent and 
retired labors of the scholar, in the accumula¬ 
tions of deep literary research, as in the more 
open and more imposing efforts of the tribune 
or the forum; or any other department of human 
skill and labor. The tendency of these thoughts, 
is, however, to Impress the value of moral train¬ 
ing ; and that, in the definition of education, we 
should never lose sight of. It is clear that, after 
all, it is not intellect that governs the world. 
There is something more—something beyond— 
and something higher than this to appeal to, in 
the bosom of every man. It is the means and 
disposition to be useful; the moral excellence—• 
and not the moral perversity ; the claim and the 
appeal a man makes through his essential good¬ 
ness, what gives value to the citizen, and ex¬ 
ceeds and surpasses, and outlasts, too, all the 
energies of the most powerful mind. I would, 
therefore, in discussing and defining the subject 
of education, look, not so much to the amount 
of mathematics, or of classical attainment, or 
any other intellectual accomplishment, as to the 
great end of showing to the world a body of 
honorable, high-minded youth. Both mind and 
heart should be cultivated; but it is of more 
importance, I believe, to fill and establish in the 
latter, high principles, than to give to the other 
superior refinement. 
But in speaking of this matter, it must be 
always borne in mind, that there are great diffi¬ 
culties to contend with. The education to which 
I allude, is that which is fitted for the majority— 
the immense majority of the people of the coun¬ 
try, and of all countries. This body, necessarily, 
as well as naturally, must lead a life of physical 
toil. To this they must be early inured, or they 
will by no means, at least, in the present condi¬ 
tion of the country, be prepared for the kind of 
life—destiny, perhaps I should say—their good 
fortune has allotted them. Here we have an 
obstacle legislation cannot overcome. To give 
a sufficient and efficient education to those who 
have no time to receive it, is one of the most 
serious difficulties the benevolent citizen and the 
sagacious law maker has to encounter. A labor¬ 
ing man, of any class, cannot afford to look 
upon his child as a mere intellectual being. He 
knows there are before him days of hard toil, 
and exposure, to which endurance he must be 
bred; and as carefully and rigidly bred, as he 
would be for the pulpit or the bar. He has not, 
it is true, the same visions of expenditure before 
him, as the wealthy citizen in a large town. The 
dancing master, music master, French, Italian, 
Spanish, and German, are not among the spec¬ 
tral appearances, stalking before him in his 
dreams, nor the rapidly-approaching necessity 
of a profession, with all its hazards, with which 
his child is to master his fortunes in the world. 
But still, the anxious father will, if he has any 
feeling, ask himself how he is to procure a good 
education for his son. The course of thought, 
as it passes through his mind, will be—“ Can I 
deprive myself of the labor of this boy ? Can 
I afford to let him pass several years at school ? 
If I do, how will he be able to perform the work 
and go through all the toil and hardship, abso¬ 
lutely necessary in his occupation? To be a 
good plowman, is as much a part of his business, 
as to know the rule of three; to understand the 
management of horses and oxen, as to study 
geography; to know how to take care of the 
farm, as to read Latin.” After going over this, 
the decision will probably be, to throw aside 
the learning, and take to hard work. Such is 
the decision, and such will be the decision, for 
