State Convention—Self-Culture. 415 
we expect to either benefit ourselves or the community in which 
we live. 
How are we to advance the general intelligence of the average 
farmer, is a question of more importance than either 4 ' cheap trans¬ 
portation, v taxes, tariff, or finance, because, under our govern¬ 
ment, on the intelligence of the masses depends the permanent 
and correct solution of these and kindred questions. Everett says 
that, 14 education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing 
army. 11 Bacon conveys the same idea in the well-known maxim, 
44 knowledge is power. 11 David says, 44 a wise man is strong; yea, a 
man of knowledge increaseth strength, 11 an idea that needs must 
occur to the observing men of all ages. That we may perform the 
various duties of life, we are endowed with a mind, a will, and a 
capacity susceptible of cultivation. Whether a man be but the 
graduate of our common schools or possess the wisdom of a gradu¬ 
ate of Yale or Harvard, unless he exerts his will-power, energy, 
and resolution, he will ever remain a cipher in the world. Our 
common schools are the preparatory departments of the farmers’ col¬ 
lege. Here, any and every one may gain possession of what Huxly 
terms the u tools of knowledge 11 —reading, writing, and elementary 
mathematics. With these, you have the key whereby you can gain 
access to the studio of a Newton or Franklin; you may spend a 
winter’s evening with Emerson or Carlyle, or you can ponder the deep 
and unfathomable 44 enigmas of life 11 with a Grey. At your leisure 
you can attend the lectures of Darwin, Huxly, Tyndall, or Proctor. 
You can listen to the discourse of a Luther or Wesley, Edwards, 
Knox, or Channing; or you can follow Draper, in his 44 Intellectual 
Developments of Europe, 11 and glance at his 44 Conflict between 
Science and Religion. 11 You can study human nature with a Shaks- 
peare or a Scott. You can gratify your imagination with the works 
of a Milton, or even Hugh Miller’s' description of that time when 
44 Curthur’s craggy bulk, that dweller of the air abrupt and lone,” 
was first ushered into the world. Hitchcock and Dana will give 
you the language of the rocks, and the history of the everlasting 
hills. But why enumerate the histories of the past? The works 
of the present and the speculations regarding the future are before 
you, ready to instruct or amuse; but upon one condition—you 
must study, must work. 
Do not understand me here as considering colleges and institu- 
