General and Incidental Views upon Agriculture [pp. 741-744]

744 VIEWS UPON AGRICULTURE.
mate. To apply these improvements and exercise the mind in the discovery o
others, should be the aim, and must be to the interest of all agriculturists who
expect great results. These results are very desirable, and their agency in pro moting individual and national prosperity too well known to need discussion.
But how are they to be obtained? We certainly cannot reach them by blindly
neglecting the means which study and observation affords to secure them.
This brings us to the cause of education, which, although too momentous a
subject to be discussed here, yet may be passingly alluded to, as the very ground work of agricultural success. By education in this connexion, we do not mean
that spurious instruction which teaches the youth of our land to turn up his nose
at honest labor, and to believe that he cannot be a gentleman unless he become a
member of one of the learned professions, or a noisy politician, or a literary char acter. Such false notions belong to sickly hot-house plants who, without a dime
in their pockets, and spending their time in idleness, love to trace their genealo gy back to antiquity, and thinking all worth lies in noble descent, are surprised
that others should believe with the poet, that
" Honor and shame from no condition rise,
Act well your part, there all the honor lies."
We mean that system of education which, while it reaps all the advantages of
schools and colleges, stops not there, but discarding narrow prejudices, expands
the mind, and enlarging the understanding, stimulates the individual to deeds of
noble enterprise. Here lies the great field of operations for parental instruction.
Many parents, unfortunately, delight in imparting and cultivating in their sons a
tenacity for crude opinions and hide-bound notions, which, as household gods,
have been handed down from father to son for successive generations. Instead of
imparting a useful and liberal sentiment, the father is well pleased, and secretly
admires the brilliant parts of his son, when he hears him eloquently promulgating
fanatical notions or sagely conducting an argument upon the difference between
tweedledum and tweedledee. By a correct system of education, the pennyless
lawyer or doctor, who, at the tail-end of his profession, sits in his narrow office
from morn till night (like a spider in his webb) watching for a call; or the gifted
young man who behind a counter wastes the prime of life in sycophantic smiles
and humble entreaties to his patrons in order to sell a yard of type; or the starv ing laborer of our large cities, would be aroused to energy, and the rich unculti vated lands which now lie idle would soon be teeming with industrious inhabi tants.
Why should there be such want and misery as are to be found about our large
cities when this favored land of ours offers such ]}ge rewards to industry and
enterprise? Surely there must be something wrong in our political economy or
in the system of instruction imparted to the youth of our land.
If, instead of striving exclusively for those high classical attainments, those
nice doctrinal points, which too often lead to bigotry in politics and religion, the
youth of the present age were taught to cultivate those liberal sentiments, which
take a clear and practical view of the pursuits and operations of life as it is;
which curb fanaticism, and spurn that sickly philanthropy that cannbt look beyond
a fixed idea; if they were taught to respect the laws and the rights of their fellow
citizens; to venerate that great chart, the constitution, by which the ship of state
has been so long and so happily guided; in short, if instead of officiously acting
as guardians for the consciences and conduct of others, they were taught to mind
their own business, and build up their reputations by their own industry and enterprise, what vigor, what freshness, what tone, would be imparted to society and
the progress of the industrial arts.
These general remarks upon the agricultural resources of our country being
properly considered by the true patriot and philanthropist, what bright visions of
future greatness and wealth for our beloved country must rise up before him. If
from some high eminence we could, with inspired vision, look through the dim
vista of the future, and behold this favored land, in all its length and breadth,
covered with millions of happy, industrious, and prosperous farmers, and dotted
over with flourishing cities, what delight would be experienced by the true philanthropist. And must this fair picture be tarnished? Must fanaticism, bigotry, and
sectional jealousies destroy this great republic? Must the antiquarian at some
future time roam over our deserted and ruined cities, and the future historian
record our fallen greatness? May the author of all good teach us wisdom, and
save us from so great a calamity.