256 
STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
destiny of man. Is not our American Civilization the Pisgah 
of the world’s wilderness, from whose summit the strong-vi¬ 
sioned philanthropist may dimly descry the more glorious future. 
For a realization of that future our country, our people, and 
the principles of our government conspire; and somewhere 
and somewhen the result will he attained. 
In view of all these general considerations, I think it must 
be evident that we do need a style and system of education of 
a peculiar character; and the question next arises, what should 
be the character of that education? 
In answer to this direct interrogatory, let me say, In the 
first place, our people must be made acquainted with Nature. 
I know that there are those, who having pre-judged the 
Sciences, distinctly so called, and pronounced them guilty of a 
gross materialism , will charge me with having a sordid philos¬ 
ophy. Let them not judge hastily: I too am a worshipper at 
the shrine of the Spiritual. But I cannot forget the stern 
material necessities of man. My heart grows weary with the 
weight of drudging toil that fills the world. I can hardly 
endure it that nine-tenths of all the time of mortals should be 
spent in the struggle to keep up the walls of this decaying 
body, while only the bits and ends of time are left for the 
culture of the soul. Aye, I long for the time so clearly 
omened by the numberless applications of steam-power and 
electric agency, when man will have subdued the elements to 
his authority and gained a complete mastery over the mighty 
forces of Nature. This is the destiny of the race—this the 
mission of our people. 
Unless our millions of acres of land, with its soils full of all 
possible fabrics and foods—our grand old forests of timber— 
our widely distributed, inexhaustible mines of coal, and lead, and 
iron, and copper, and silver, and gold—our increasing millions 
of people of unparalleled activity, energy and genius—unless 
the sciences, which, in their rapid advancement, are almost 
daily startling mankind with new revelations, and making him 
king who else had been slave,—unless all these eloquent 
prophecies are a mockery of our heaven-born hopes, then is it 
