186 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
justice, as well as from considerations of sound policy —because she 
has had nothing special, while other classes have had much. She 
shares, in common with all, in the advantages of common schools, 
and public improvements, and she did receive, in 1817, a pittance, a 
special pittance, which she has refunded to the treasury, in the form 
of revenue, with compound interest. The state may be likened to 
a large family of boys. Five sixths of these have charge of the 
farm; others are taught trades and handicrafts ; and to these two 
classes is confided the task of providing for the wants of the family. 
But, as a necessary appendage to a large family, one son is set apart 
as a doctor, another as a minister, and a third as a lawyer; and to 
qualify these the better for their respective duties, it is agreed that 
a portion of the family funds shall be applied to the establishment 
and maintenance of a school, for their exclusive benefit. Thus 
while the farmers and mechanics are getting their trades, by labor, 
in the field and in the shop, the doctor, the parson and the lawyer 
are getting their professions in the public school. By and by the 
working boys discover, that, owing to the rapid improvements of the 
age, school knowledge is as advantageous to the trades as it is to 
the professions; that there have been great improvements made 
abroad in their several arts of labor, and that without a knowledge 
of these improvements, and of the laws upon which they are based, 
they cannot successfully compete with their better instructed neigh¬ 
bors. Feeling themselves entitled to the same favor that has been 
shown to the doctor, the parson and the lawyer,—desirous of ac¬ 
quiring this useful knowledge in their business so necessary to the 
common interests of the family, and influenced by a laudable pride 
to become in fact, what they are in name, on a footing of equality 
with their already learned brethren,—the working boys now ask the 
family, to establish for them a school, adapted to their employments, 
now that the affairs of the family are prosperous. We cannot, say 
they, acquire the desired knowledge in the doctor’s school, because 
it is not taught there ; and because, were it taught, we cannot be 
spared from the farm and shop to go after it. We want a school in 
which we can practice our hands to useful labor, gain instruction in 
the principles of our business, and at the same time qualify our¬ 
selves for the higher duties of social and public life. Is there any 
thing unreasonable in this request 1 Or is there aught in it which a 
wise and prudent family would not grant with alacrity 1 
The state has expended about three millions of dollars towards 
qualifying the doctor, the divine, the lawyer, and the gentleman, to 
discharge their several duties in society, from which the farmer and 
mechanic can derive but partial, if any, direct advantage. The 
plainest principles of justice, which accede to all classes an equal 
participation in the favors of a free government, as well as a provi¬ 
dent foresight, require alike some special provision for those who 
live by the sweat of the brow. 
W e affect to be above the people of the old continent in all our so¬ 
cial and political privileges. To sustain this superiority, we should 
be above them, too, in our intellectual and moral improvements.— 
But we are not. We are superficial in too many things. We mis¬ 
take the name, too often, for the substance. We are satisfied with 
sowing a few seeds at random, upon superficial tillage, leaving the 
after culture to chance; and the consequence is, weeds spring up 
with luxuriance, and often smother and destroy the plants of useful¬ 
ness. We have but begun in cultivating the mind, the great lever 
to the arts, and the refiner of human enjoyments. We do not go 
far enough to ensure the harvest. In many portions of Europe, the 
mind is brought into early discipline, carefully prepared, and sown 
with those seeds which promise the best return to the individual 
and to the community. Take Prussia for an illustration of this re¬ 
mark. There the government provides seven years instruction for 
every child in the kingdom, at the public charge when the parent 
is unable to defray it. And what branches of instruction are there 
taught 1 Not merely those elementary studies, as reading, writing 
and the preliminary rules of arithmetic, which constitute the main 
studies in our common schools—but the sciences which instruct and 
dignify the useful arts—chemistry, geology, botany, &c.—geogra¬ 
phy, history, geometry, drawing and music ; the mechanic arts and 
agriculture. Nor does the Prussian government stop here : It pro¬ 
vides the schools with the means of teaching this knowledge effi¬ 
ciently, And the primary, or common schools, are not only provid¬ 
ed with books and other ordinary matters, but with a collection of 
maps and geographical instruments, models of drawing, writing, 
music, &c., with instruments and collections necessary for studying 
natural history, and, according to the extent of the system of in 
struction, with the apparatus necessary for gymnastic exercises, and 
tools suited to teach the mechanic arts or manufactures in the 
school. She also attaches to every school in a village, or small 
town, a kitchen or orchard garden, which is made available for the 
instruction of the scholars; and to her normal schools, or schools 
for the education of teachers, a farm, for practical instructions in 
agriculture. Dr. Channing, in speaking of the Prussian system of 
instruction, says it is adapted to a monarchy—to bring the minds of 
subjects in quiet subjection to the will of the sovereign. So far as 
we have sketched its features, it seems as well adapted to a repub¬ 
lic as a monarchy. If a king finds it for his interest thus to have 
all his subjects instructed in the higher, or at least most useful 
branches of knowledge, of how much greater importance is it, that 
those who are themselves to share in the sovereignty, to make and 
execute laws, should have their minds early imbued with useful 
knowledge. In giving these outlines of common school education 
in Prussia, we give, with trifling variation, the system in operation 
in Wurtemburgh, Bavaria, and other German states, and which is 
now being adopted in the French empire. The education of the 
great body of the people, with the view of implanting good habits, 
and fitting them, ill school, for the various and important pursuits of 
life, is an improvement of modern times, and one of great moment 
in a moral and national point of view. It is particularly adapted to 
the welfare of a free people. 
We want schools of science and practice, where the principles 
and the practice of the useful arts may be simultaneously taught, 
and the physical and intellectual powers of our youth fully develop¬ 
ed in aid of each other. We want in our common schools a higher 
grade of studies, as a necessary foundation for increasing the know¬ 
ledge and usefulness of our people. We want those stimulants to 
the development of mind, the germination of latent skill, and the prac¬ 
tice of useful industry, which are the sure preludes of national pros¬ 
perity and greatness. We want, particularly, a school of scientific 
and practical agriculture, as matter of experiment first; and should 
it prosper as we think it will, we shall hereafter want other like 
schools. We have seen the agriculture of England more than 
doubled in its products, under the vivifying influence of an efficient 
board of agriculture, patronized and sustained by the government. 
I Wc have seen Scotland increasing, three and four fold, the produc¬ 
tions of her soil, under the active and salutary influence of the very 
'liberal premiums, which have annually, for fifty years, been distribu¬ 
ted by her agricultural society. We see France, growing wise 
from the example of her neighbors, establishing national farms, and 
sustaining her agricultural societies by appropriations from her trea¬ 
sury ; and we see the speedy and happy effects of this patronage, 
in the new impetus which has been given to the beet culture, and 
to improvement in her agriculture generally. We have seen our 
sister Massachusetts sustaining her agricultural societies by liberal 
annual appropriations from her treasury ; and when the law making 
these appropriations had expired, we have seen her renewing it, 
thus affording the strongest evidence of its wisdom and utility.— 
We wish it was in our power to add, that New-York, great as she 
is in territory, in population, in resources and enterprise, had done 
something great, or generous, or just, to promote the improvement 
of her agriculture, the great business of her population. We hope 
the opportunity will be afforded for some one to do it hereafter. 
The means which come legitimately within the purview of legis¬ 
lative duties, for promoting improvement in the productive arts of 
labor, are,—the dissemination, through our common schools, of the 
elementary principles of natural science, now become indispensable 
to the successful prosecution of the useful arts;—the patronizing of 
schools which shall simultaneously teach, practically, at least the 
great business of agriculture, and the sciences which serve to illus¬ 
trate, enlighten, and render it more useful and profitable to the 
state;—to disseminate, through common school libraries, standard 
works upon husbandry and other common arts of labor; and to en¬ 
courage the formation of county and local associations of farmers, 
with the view of calling into useful action, by pecuniary and hono¬ 
rary rewards, the latent energies of our rural population. 
“The arts,” says Sir John Herschell, “cannot be perfected, till 
their whole processes are laid open, and their language simplified 
and rendered universally intelligible. Art is the application of know¬ 
ledge to a practical end. If the knowledge be merely accumulated 
experience, the art is empirical; but if it be experience reasoned 
upon and brought under general principles, it assumes a higher 
I character, and becomes a scientific art. In the progress of mankind 
