Xs 
THE CULTIVATOR. 171 
should be advanced to that degree of respectability, which should make 
it an object of desire instead of disdain, and give it that place in the pub¬ 
lic estimation, which its importance justly claims. We wish that manual 
labor should be considered honorable; and that the man who, by the sweat 
of his brow, develops the resources of our great nourishing mother, the 
earth, and, by toil and skill, extends these resources and doubles her pro¬ 
ducts, for the subsistence and comfort of the animal creation, and thus 
multiplies indefinitely the capacity and means of happiness, should be re¬ 
garded as among the truest benefactors of the community; as occupying 
one of the most honorable posts, and performing one of the most useful 
parts in the beneficient schemes of Divine Providence. 
The next inquiry is, can this be done? We shall not undertake to say 
how fully or to what extent it may be accomplished; but we are happy in 
the belief that much has already been done, and still more may be effect¬ 
ed, to render the profession of agriculture as respectable as, in a political 
view, it is useful, and, to a rational mind, engaging and delightful. What 
many of us feel to be matter of serious regret, and which results, in a 
considerable degree, from the false notions of which we have been speak¬ 
ing, is the fact that farmers’ sons are in so small a proportion found wil¬ 
ling to engage in the business of farming; but are crowding into the learn¬ 
ed professions, already full to overflowing; pushing into every avenue of 
trade, with the impetuosity of a pent-up stream, and suddenly bursting 
the barriers of its enclosure; thirsting for political office or employment 
under any form, with an eagerness as impatient as that with which cer¬ 
tain voracious expectants in the farm-yard gather round the trough at the 
call of the herdsman; forsaking the simple fare and the plain and humble 
occupations of the country, for the enervating, and too often pernicious 
luxuries and pleasures, and the exciting, harassing, and uncertain cares, 
may we not add, perilous games, of city and commercial life; exchang¬ 
ing the wholesome and free pursuits of agriculture, oftentimes at the cer¬ 
tain risk of health and life, for some of the most unwholesome pursuits of 
the arts and manufactures, if so that in any way they can see a quicker 
return in cash for their labor; more often seeking to live by their wits than 
their hands; and, at the peril of peace, honor, and all good morals, plung¬ 
ing into the most extravagant and hazardous speculations. 
Now, to be sure, the obvious and perhaps only cure for this evil would 
be to correct the moral sentiments of the community; to give to the young 
a truer standard of duty; more correct views of what is honorable; a juster 
sense of what they owe to society, and better notions of the true dignity 
and good of life. It would be well, if we could early make them feel that 
they were as much designed to labor as to live; that the industrious em¬ 
ployment of their talents of every kind, is an obligation of the highest so¬ 
lemnity, and one which they cannot forego with impunity; that all labor 
which is useful, whatever may be the current estimation of it, is equally 
honorable; that a competency is far more favorable to comfort and virtue, 
than an excess; that exemption from care and labor is, in most cases, a 
curse rather than a blessing; that a sufficiency of the common comforts of 
life, with the means of meeting the ordinary claims of hospitality and be¬ 
neficence, added to the gradual improvement of our condition as we ad¬ 
vance in age, presents the situation of all others the most desirable and en¬ 
viable in human life; that an inordinate avarice, with its ordinary concomi¬ 
tants of niggardliness, fraud, and inhumanity, is among the most debas¬ 
ing of all passions; that they who make undue haste to be rich are seldom 
innocent; that sudden acquisitions are always hazardous to virtue; that 
speculation is a game of hazard, in which men much oftener lose than 
win, and extraordinary gains are but too often made at the cost, if we 
may use the expression, of losses, for which no pecuniary success can 
ever furnish a compensation. These moral influences are likely to have 
but a very partial operation. Few are so fortunate in the situation in 
which they are early placed, so favored in their connexions, their parent¬ 
age. theii early advantages,—that these impressions become so deeply 
implanted in the seed-time of life, and so carefully watched over and 
strengthened by parental culture and example, as to control the decisions 
of youth, and fix their lasting impress upon the character. To most 
persons, indeed, these lessons come only as the fruit of their own mature 
experience, and so late in life that it is almost beyond our power to re¬ 
trieve our early mistakes, and apply the dictates of wisdom to the regula¬ 
tion of our business and conduct. 
But what these moral influences may fail to effect, we may hope will 
be ultimately accomplished by the power of education, operating in con¬ 
junction with them; we mean intellectual education—intellectual improve¬ 
ment. In this matter, we trust we shall be doing no injustice to the ag¬ 
ricultural class, if we say they are very deficient; that they are very far 
below the point, in the scale of information which they ought to have 
reached, in this age of easy knowledge and unexampled progress. Taken 
as a body, are not the farmers, in respect to intellectual improvement, 
far behind the merchants and the mechanics? With professional men 
of course, we do not compare them. If farmers, then, would be respect¬ 
ed as they ought, they must, by the improvement of their minds, esta¬ 
blish their claims to this respect. They must not only cultivate their 
lands, but they must cultivate themselves. Putting moral character out 
of the question, for nothing is to be compared with this, what raises one 
man above another? Not animal strength; not political power; not mere 
cunning; not artificial arbitrary rank; but mind, knowledge, intellectual 
cultivation, true philosophy. This constitutes the only real nobility of 
human nature—the legitimate aristocracy of mankind, whose laurel ho¬ 
nors are open to all who will deserve them, and with which no aristocracy 
of wealth, or power, or title, can ever come into competition. 
We say, then, there is no class in the commuuity so much interested 
in education as the farmers. They are the most numerous part of the po¬ 
pulation; they are in every respect the most important part of the popu¬ 
lation. We mean nothing invidious or disparaging to other pursuits or 
professions by these remarks, but they have more at stake in the country 
than any other class in the community. Professional men, merchants, 
and others, among the non-productive classes, may change their busi¬ 
ness pursuits, or residence, at pleasure; readily become naturalized to 
any situation in which they happen to be placed; carry their goods, ta¬ 
lents, and capital with them; and soon take root wherever they chance to 
fall. No so with the farmer. His farm is immovable; he is a fixture to 
the soil; he cannot, if he would, separate himself from his country; and 
all his interests are involved in its welfare and condition. Floating ca¬ 
pital, as it is termed, may play ten thousand pranks; expose itself at one 
time, and suddenly hide itself at another; now rise to the surface and 
basking in the sunshine, making the whole sea, as far as the eye can 
reach, appear like a bed of glittering diamonds; and then, at the first ris¬ 
ing of the storm, when the threatening cloud is no bigger than a man’s 
hand, at once sink to the bottom, and bury itself in its unsearchable con¬ 
cealments; at one time emerging from the waters long enough only to 
throw its dazzling rays into the eyes of the bewildered and enraptured be¬ 
holder; and then, as it were, at the pleasure of the magician, who cries 
begone, it vanishes from his sight. It is far different with what is pro¬ 
perly called real property—the farm, the capital of the farmer; that re¬ 
mains fixed and exposed, without the possibility of withdrawal, or con¬ 
cealment, or shelter, to all the changes of the political sky. All that he 
calls his own is fastened, by an inviolable chain, for weal or for woe, to 
the destines of his country. Are we wrong then in saying, the agricultu¬ 
ral class are the most important part of our population? and can we, in re¬ 
spect to this class, possibly overrate the importance of education? To 
what class in the community is it so important that they should understand 
their rights; that they should have a just perception of the true interests 
of the country; and that they should be qualified for the intelligent dis¬ 
charge of their duties as citizens of the Republic, who must always have 
the deepest interest in its destinies and fortunes; and who, so long as our 
free constitutions are sustained, and the right of universal suffrage is con¬ 
tinued, must have its government and condition within their control ? No¬ 
thing can effect this much for them but education. This only can secure 
to them that respectable standing in the political community, to which 
they have a just claim, and enable them to exert properly and successfully 
the important influence which belongs to them. While the great body of 
the yeomanry remain an ignorant, and comparatively degraded class, the 
inevitable consequence of ignorance, there is in truth no adequate security 
for public liberty. 
Education, in the next place, is most important to the farmers as mat¬ 
ter of interest—I mean matters of interest and profit in their own art. I 
know very well the idle and senseless sneers, which are thrown out con¬ 
tinually against what is called book farming, but they are scarcely worth 
noticing. I am not unaware, likewise, of the great importance of practi¬ 
cal knowledge and personal experience in an art so practical as agriculture. 
Yet I have no hesitation in saying, that there is no art, which, for its im¬ 
provement and success, owes more to science than this. I admit that 
some of our most successful farmers, in a pecuniary point of view, as well 
as some of our most enterprising merchants, have been men of very im¬ 
perfect advantages, and limited information. But though they have been 
men of few of the public and ordinary advantages of education, yet such 
men have never, unless in some very extraordinary and accidental case, 
been other than what are called self-taught men; men of great natural 
shrewdness and intelligence, who have anxiously availed themselves of 
all the advantages within their reach, and obtained all the information in 
respect to their particular profession and art, which it was in their power 
to acquire. And have they not themselves invariably felt and lamented 
the want of education ? And would not their labors have been more effi¬ 
cient, their improvements greater, their efforts made with superior suc¬ 
cess, if, to the native energy, and perseverance, and good judgment and 
skill, for which they have been remarkable, had been added the know¬ 
ledge and information, which superior early advantages of education would 
have afforded them ? But produce as many of these cases of extraordinary 
success on the part of uneducated men as can be found, and, on the other 
hand, of the ill success of merely theoretical men, literary book-farmers, 
who, without any previous practical knowledge, have undertaken to ma¬ 
nage and cultivate a farm solely by information gathered from treatises of 
agriculture, (and yet I confess I have never known such instances,) yet if 
these cases of either kind were a thousand times as numerous as they are, 
would this overthrow the established principle of the universal value of 
knowledge? and if, in every other art, even the most humble, knowledge 
is so important, is the source of power, and an essential means of success 
in the great art of agriculture, involving so many relations to be regarded. 
