PRACTICAL PAPERS —EDUCATION FOR FARMERS. 445 
farmers have little or no use for their horses during the winter 
months, and it would be as well to use them in conveying their 
children to and from school, as to keep them idle at home. 
I would have the school building at the center of the town, and 
furnished with the necessary apparatus for analyzing the soil, or for 
making any chemical analysis that would be of use in farm hus¬ 
bandry. In all towns having a maximum taxable valuation, I 
would have a small portion of land owned by the town in conve¬ 
nient proximity to the center or high school building, which 
should be used for an experimental farm and garden. I believe, 
with Thomas Paine, that “every thought that was ever uttered by 
the ancients, that is worthy of our consideration, has been long 
since translated into the English language; ” I would therefore 
have no time spent in the study of the dead languages, neither 
would I have so much time devoted to the higher branches of 
mathematics as is usually spent in the high schools, but instead, I 
would have a thorough course in geology, mineralogy, botany, 
chemistry and political economy. I would also have each student 
understand at least so much of the civil law as to be acquainted 
with the rights of persons and things ; I would, if possible, drive 
the legal profession into higher fields of attainment for a liveli¬ 
hood. It is a sad fact that many a good farmer, for the want of a 
knowledge of the rights of persons and things , has spent the earn¬ 
ings of a lifetime getting some one else to define them for him. I 
would also have every one so well instructed in physiology and 
the laws of health, that the doctor would be compelled to confine 
himself to a purely mechanical branch of his profession. As to 
the clergy, I would give them larger pay and a wider field of 
labor. I would make theirs and the schoolmasters, the most 
lucrative callings in the land, thus drawing the best talent we have 
into the channels of teaching. 
I would consider it of as great importance for a farmer to have 
a good library oi well selected books as it is for him to have the 
necessary tools and implements to cultivate the farm. If there is 
a newspaper published in the county, the farmer should subscribe 
for it, read and pay for it in advance. He should also take the 
best conducted religious journal that he can find published by the 
society in which he is a believer. Every farmer living in the 
