"While thus striking out for himself a bold and original style, Demosthenes had still greater difficulties to overcome in regard to the external requisites of an orator. He was not endowed by nature, like AEschines, with a magnificent voice; nor, like Demades, with a ready flow of vehement improvisation. His thoughts required to be put together by careful preparation; his voice was bad, and even lisping; his breath short; his gesticulation ungraceful; moreover, he was overawed and embarrassed by the manifestations of the multitude.... The energy and success with which Demosthenes overcame his defects, in such manner as to satisfy a critical assembly like the Athenians, is one of the most memorable circumstances in the general history of self-education. Repeated humiliation and repulse only spurred him on to fresh solitary efforts for improvement. He corrected his defective elocution by speaking with pebbles in his mouth; he prepared himself to overcome the noise of the assembly by declaiming in stormy weather on the sea-shore of Phalerum; he opened his lungs by running, and extended his powers of holding breath by pronouncing sentences in marching up-hill; he sometimes passed two or three months without interruption in a subterranean chamber, practising night and day either in composition or declamation, and shaving one-half of his head in order to disqualify himself from going abroad."[3] Yet all this effort and sacrifice were accompanied by repeated and humiliating failures; and it was not until he was twenty-seven years of age that the great orator of the world achieved his first success before the Athenian assembly.

But how can the youth of this age hope to be followers, even at a distance, of Demosthenes, and of those his peers, who, by eloquence, poetry, art, science, and general learning, have added dignity to the race, and given lustre to generations separated by oceans and centuries, unless they are animated by a spirit of progress, and cheered by a faith that shall be manifested in the disposition and the power to overcome the obstacles that lie in every one's path?

Such a course of training requires individual effort and personal self-sacrifice. It would not be wise to follow the plan of the Athenian orator; he adapted his training to his personal circumstances, and the customs of the country. His history is chiefly valuable for the lessons of self-reliance, and the example of perseverance under discouragements, that it furnishes. But it is always a solemn duty to hold up before youth noble models of industry, perseverance, and success, that they may be stimulated to the work of life by the assurance of history that,

"Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each to-morrow Find us further than to-day."

III. The popular reading of the day does not contribute essentially to the education of the citizen and statesman.—It is not, of course, expected that every man is to qualify himself for the life of a statesman; but it does seem necessary for all to be so well instructed in political learning as to possess the means of forming a reasonable and philosophical opinion of the policy of the government. It is as discreditable to the intellect and judgment of a free people to complain of that which is right in itself, and rests upon established principles of right, as to submit without resistance or murmur to usurpation or misgovernment. I do not mean to undervalue the periodical press; but it must always assume something in regard to its readers, and in politics it must assume that the principles of government and the history of national institutions are known and understood.

But the young man should subject himself to a systematic course of training; and I know of nothing more valuable in political studies than a thorough acquaintance with English history. Our principles of government were derived from England; and it is in the history of the mother country that the best discussion of principles is found, as in that country many of the contests for liberty occurred. But, as our government is the outgrowth rather than a copy of British principles and institutions, the American citizen is not prepared for his duties until he has made himself familiar with American history, in all its departments. How ill-suited, then, for the duties of citizenship and public life, in the formation of taste and habits of thought, is much of the reading of the present time! And I may here call attention to the fact that each town in Massachusetts is invested with authority to establish a public library by taxation. This, it seems to me, is one of the most important legislative acts of the present decennial period; and, indeed, a public library is essential to the view I am taking of the necessity and importance of political education. Private libraries exist, but they are not found in every house, nor can every person enjoy their advantages. Public libraries are open to all; and, when the selection of books is judicious, they furnish opportunities for education hardly less to be prized than the common schools themselves. The public library is not only an aid to general learning, a contributor to political intelligence and power, but it is an efficient supporter of sound morals, and all good neighborhood among men.

If the public will not offer to its youth valuable reading, such as its experience, its wisdom, its knowledge of the claims of society, its morality may select, shall the public complain if its young men and women are tempted by frivolous and pernicious mental occupations? It is, moreover, the duty of the public to furnish the means of self-education, especially in the science of government; and political learning, for the most part, must be gained after the school-going period of life has passed.

Let American liberty be an intelligent liberty, and therefore a self-sustaining liberty. Freedom, more or less complete, has been found in two conditions of life. Man, in a rude state, where his condition seemed to be normal, rather than the result of a process of mental and moral degeneracy, has often possessed a large share of independence; but this should by no means be confounded with what in America is called liberty. The independence of the savage, or nomad, is manifested in the absence of law; but the liberty of an American citizen is the power to do whatever may be beneficial to himself, and not injurious to his neighbor nor to the state. The first leaves self-protection and self-regulation to the individual, while the latter restrains the aggressive tendencies of all for the security of each. The first is natural equality without law; the second is natural equality before the law. With the first, might makes right; with the latter, right makes might. With the first, the power of the law, or of the will of an individual or clan, is in the rigor and success of execution; with the latter, the power of the law is in the justice of its demand. We, as a people, have passed the savage and nomadic state, and can return to it only after a long and melancholy process of decay and change, out of which ultimately might come a new and savage race of men. This, then, is not our immediate, even if it be a possible danger. But we are to guard against intellectual, political, and moral degeneracy. We are, through family, religious, and public education, to take security of the childhood and youth of the land for the preservation of the institutions we have, and for the growth, greatness, and justice, of the republic. Liberty in America, if you will admit the distinction, is a growth and not a creation. The institutions of liberty in America have the same character. By many centuries of trial, struggle, and contest, through many years of experience, sometimes joyous, and sometimes sad, the fact and the institutions of liberty in America have been evolved. It has not been a work of destruction and creation, but a process of change and progress. And so it must ever be. Reformation does not often follow destruction; and they who seek to destroy the institutions of a country are not its friends in fact, however they may be in purpose. Ignorance can destroy, but intelligence is required to reform or build up. Let the prejudice against learning, not common now, but possibly existing in some minds, be forever banished. Learning is the friend of liberty. Of this America has had evidence in her own history, and in her observation of the experience of others. The literary institutions and the cultivated men of America, like Milton and Hampden in England, preferred

"Hard liberty before the easy yoke Of servile pomp."

It was the intelligence of the country that everywhere uttered and everywhere accepted the declaration of the town of Boston, in the revolutionary struggle, "We can endure poverty, but we disdain slavery." Ignorance is quicksand on which no stable political structure can be built; and I predict the future greatness of our beloved state, in those historical qualities that outlast the ages, from the fact that she is not tempted by her extent of territory, salubrity of climate, fertility of soil, or by the presence and promise of any natural source of wealth, to falter in her devotion to learning and liberty. And I anticipate for Massachusetts a career of influence beneficial to all, whether disputed or accepted, when I reflect that, with less good fortune in the presence and combination of learning and liberty, Greece, Rome, Venice, Holland, and England, enjoyed power disproportionate to their respective populations, territory, and natural resources. And, while the object for which we are convened may pardon something to local attachments and state pride, the day and the occasion ought not to pass without a grateful and hearty acknowledgment of the interest manifested by other states and sections in the cause of general learning, and especially in common-school education. The Canadas are our rivals; the states of the West are our rivals; the states of the South are our rivals; and, were our greater experience and better opportunities reckoned against us, I know not that there would be much in our systems of education of which we could properly boast. It is, indeed, possible that North Carolina, untoward circumstances having their due weight, has made more progress in education, since 1840, than any other state of the Union.

Education is not only favorable to liberty, but, when associated with liberty, it is the basis of the Union and power of the American states. As citizens of the republic, we need a better knowledge of our national institutions, a better knowledge of the institutions of the several states, a more intimate acquaintance with one another, and the power of judging wisely and justly the policies and measures of each and all. These ends, aided or accomplished by general learning, will so strengthen the Union as no force of armies can—will so strengthen the Union as that by no force of armies can it be overthrown.

FOOTNOTE:

[3] Grote's Hist., vol. xi., p. 266, et seq.



MASSACHUSETTS SCHOOL FUND.

[Extract from the Twenty-Second Annual Report of the Secretary of the Board of Education.]

The Massachusetts School Fund was established by the Legislature of 1834 (stat. 1834, chap. 169), and it was provided by the act that all moneys in the treasury on the first of January, 1835, derived from the sale of lands in the State of Maine, and from the claim of the state on the government of the United States for military services, and not otherwise appropriated, together with fifty per centum of all moneys thereafter to be received from the sale of lands in Maine, should be appropriated to constitute a permanent fund, for the aid and encouragement of Common Schools. It was provided that the fund should never exceed one million of dollars, and that the income only should be appropriated to the object in view. The mode of distribution was referred to a subsequent Legislature. It was, however, provided that a greater sum should never be paid to any city or town than was raised therein for the support of common schools. There are two points in the law that deserve consideration. First, the object of the fund was the aid and encouragement of the schools, and not their support; and secondly, the limit of appropriation to the respective towns was the amount raised by each. There is an apparent inconsistency in this restriction when it is considered that the income of the entire fund would have been equal to only forty-three cents for each child in the state between the ages of five and fifteen years, and that each town raised, annually, by taxation, a larger sum; but this inconsistency is to be explained by the fact that the public sentiment, as indicated by resolves reported by the same committee for the appointment of commissioners on the subject, tended to a distribution of money among the towns according to their educational wants.

As early as 1828, the Committee on Education of the House of Representatives, in a Report made by Hon. W. B. Calhoun, declared, "That means should be devised for the establishment of a fund having in view not the support, but the encouragement, of the common schools, and the instruction of school teachers." This report was made in the month of January, and in February following the same committee say: "The establishment of a fund should look to the support of an institution for the instruction of school teachers in each county in the commonwealth, and to the distribution, annually, to all the towns, of such a sum for the benefit of the schools as shall simply operate as an encouragement to proportionate efforts on the part of the towns. A fund which should be so large as to suffice for the support of the whole school establishment of the state, as is the case in Connecticut, would, in the opinion of the committee, be rather detrimental than advantageous; it would only serve to draw off from the mass of the community that animating interest which will ever be found indispensable where a resolute feeling upon the subject is wished for or expected. Such a result is, in every sense, to be deprecated, and whatever may tend to it, even remotely, should be anxiously avoided. A fund which should admit of the distribution of one thousand dollars to any town which should raise three thousand dollars, in any manner within itself, or in that proportion, would operate as a strong incentive to high efforts; and, if to this should be added the further requisition of a faithful return to the Legislature, annually, of the condition of the schools, the consequences could not be otherwise than decidedly favorable." This report was accompanied by a bill "for the establishment of the Massachusetts Literary Fund." The bill followed the report in regard to the proportionate amount of the income of the fund to be distributed to the several towns. This bill failed to become a law.

In January, 1833, the House of Representatives, under an order introduced by Mr. Marsh, of Dalton, appointed a committee "to consider the expediency of investing a portion of the proceeds of the sales of the lands of this commonwealth in a permanent fund, the interest of which should be annually applied, as the Legislature should from time to time direct, for the encouragement of common schools." The adoption of this order was the incipient measure that led to the establishment of the Massachusetts School Fund. On the twenty-third of the same month, Mr. Marsh submitted the report of the committee. The committee acted upon the expectation that all moneys then in the treasury derived from the sale of public lands, and the entire proceeds of all subsequent sales, were to be set apart as a fund for the encouragement of common schools; but, as blanks were left in the bill reported, they seem not to have been sanguine of the liberality of the Legislature. The cash and notes on hand amounted to $234,418.32, and three and a half millions of acres of land unsold amounted, at the estimated price of forty cents per acre, to $1,400,000 more; making together a fund with a capital of $1,634,418.32. The income was estimated at $98,065.09. It was also stated that there were 140,000 children in the state between the ages of five and fifteen years, and it was therefore expected that the income of the fund would permit a distribution to the towns of seventy cents for each child between the afore-named ages. This certainly was a liberal expectation, compared with the results that have been attained. The distributive share of each child has amounted to only about one-third of the sum then contemplated. The committee were careful to say, "It is not intended, in establishing a school fund, to relieve towns and parents from the principal expense of education; but to manifest our interest in, and to give direction, energy, and stability to, institutions essential to individual happiness and the public welfare." In conclusion, the committee make the following inquiries and suggestions:

"Should not our common schools be brought nearer to their constitutional guardians? Shall we not adopt measures which shall bind, in grateful alliance, the youth to the governors of the commonwealth? We consider the application, annually, of the interest of the proposed fund, as the establishment of a direct communication betwixt the Legislature and the schools; as each representative can carry home the bounty of the government, and bring back from the schools returns of gratitude and proficiency. They will then cheerfully render all such information as the Legislature may desire. A new spirit would animate the community, from which we might hope the most happy results. This endowment would give the schools consequence and character, and would correct and elevate the standard of education.

"Therefore, to preserve the purity, extend the usefulness, and perpetuate the benefits of intelligence, we recommend that a fund be constituted, and the distribution of the income so ordered as to open a direct and more certain intercourse with the schools; believing that by this measure their wants would be better understood and supplied, the advantages of education more highly appreciated and improved, and the blessings of wisdom, virtue, and knowledge, carried home to the fireside of every family, to the bosom of every child." The bill reported by this committee was read twice, and then, upon Mr. Marsh's motion, referred to the next Legislature.

In 1834, the bill from the files of the last General Court to establish the Massachusetts School Fund, and so much of the petition of the inhabitants of Seekonk as related to the same subject, were referred to the Committee on Education.

In the month of February, Hon. A. D. Foster, of Worcester, chairman of the committee, made a report, and submitted a bill which was the basis of the law of March 31, 1834. The committee were sensible of the importance of establishing a fund for the encouragement of the common schools. These institutions were languishing for support, and in a great degree destitute of the public sympathy. There were no means of communication between the government and the schools, and in some sections towns and districts had set themselves resolutely against all interference by the state. In 1832, an effort was made to ascertain the amount raised for the support of schools. Returns were received from only ninety-nine towns, showing an annual average expenditure of one dollar and ninety-eight cents for each pupil.

The interest in this subject does not seem to have been confined to the Legislature, nor even to have originated there. The report of the committee contains an extract from a communication made by Rev. William C. Woodbridge, then editor of the American Annals of Education and Instruction. His views were adopted by the committee, and they corresponded with those which have been already quoted. The dangers of a large fund were presented, and the example of Connecticut, and some states of the West, where school funds had diminished rather than increased the public interest in education, was tendered as a warning against a too liberal appropriation of public money. On the other hand, Mr. Woodbridge claimed that the establishment of a fund which should encourage efforts rather than supply all wants, and, without sustaining the schools, give aid to the people in proportion to their own contributions, was a measure indispensable to the cause of education. He also referred to the experience of New Jersey, which had made a general appropriation to be paid to those towns that should contribute for the support of their own schools; but, such was the public indifference, that after many years the money was still in the treasury. Hence it was inferred that all these measures were ineffectual, and that mere taxation was, upon the whole, to be preferred to any imperfect system. But the example of New York was approved, where the distribution of a small sum, equal to about twenty cents for each pupil, had increased the public interest, and wrought what then seemed to be an effectual and permanent revolution in educational affairs. These facts and reasonings, say the committee, seem to be important and sound, and to result in this,—that no provision ought to be made which shall diminish the present amount of money raised by taxes for the schools, or the interest felt by the people in their prosperity; that a fund may be so used as satisfactorily to increase both—and that further information in regard to our schools is requisite to determine the best mode of doing this. These opinions are supported generally by the judgment of the present generation. Yet it is to be remarked, by way of partial dissent, that the public apathy in Connecticut and the states of the West was not in a great degree the effect of the funds, but was rather a coexisting, independent fact. It ought not, therefore, to have been expected that the mere offer of money for educational purposes, while the people had no just idea of the importance of education or of the means by which it could be acquired, would lead them even to accept the proffered boon; and it certainly, in their judgment, furnished no reason for self-taxation. It is, however, no doubt true that the power of local taxation for the support of schools is in its exercise a means of provoking interest in education; and it is reasonable to assume that a public system of instruction will never be vigorous and efficient at all times and under all circumstances where the right of local taxation does not exist or is not exercised. When the entire expenditure is derived from the income of public funds, or obtained by a universal tax, and the proceeds distributed among the towns, parishes, or districts, there will often be general conditions of public sentiment unfavorable, if not hostile, to schools; and, there will always be found in any state, however small, local indifference and lethargy which render all gifts, donations, and distributions, comparatively valueless. The subject of self-taxation annually is important in connection with a system of free education. It is the experience of the states of this country that the people themselves are more generous in the use of this power than are their representatives; and it is also true that when the power has been exercised by the people, there is usually more interest awakened in regard to modes of expenditure, and more zeal manifested in securing adequate returns. The private conversations and public debates often arouse an interest which would never have been manifested had the means of education been furnished by a fund, or been distributed as the proceeds of a general tax assessed by the government of the state.

I have no doubt that much of our success is due to the fact that in all the towns the question of taxation is annually submitted to the people. It is quite certain that the sum of our municipal appropriations never could have been increased from $387,124.17, in 1837, to $1,341,252.03, in 1858, without the influence of the statistical tables that are appended to the Annual Reports of the Board of Education; and it is also true that the materials for these tables could not have been secured without the agency of the school fund. Our experience as a state confirms the wisdom of the reports of 1833 and 1834; and I unreservedly concur in the opinion that a fund ought not to be sufficient for the support of schools, but that such a fund is needed to give encouragement to the towns, to stimulate the people to make adequate local appropriations, to secure accurate and complete returns from the committees, and finally to provide means for training teachers, and for defraying the necessary expenses of the educational department. The law of 1834, establishing the school fund, was reenacted in the Revised Statutes (chap. 11, sects. 13 and 14). The Revised Statutes (chap. 23, sects. 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, and 67) also required that returns should be made, each year, from all the towns of the commonwealth, of the condition of the schools in various important particulars. The income of the fund was to be apportioned among the towns that had raised, the preceding year, the sum of one dollar by taxation for each pupil, and had complied with the laws in other respects; and it was to be distributed according to the number of persons in each between the ages of four and sixteen years. These provisions have since been frequently and variously modified; but at all times the state has imposed similar conditions upon the towns. By the statute of 1839, chapter 56, the income of the school fund was to be apportioned among those towns that had raised by taxation for the support of schools the sum of one dollar and twenty-five cents for each person between the ages of four and sixteen years; and, by the law of 1849, chapter 117, the income was to be apportioned among those towns which had raised by taxation the sum of one dollar and fifty cents for the education of each person between the ages of five and fifteen years. This provision is now in force. By an act of the Legislature, passed April 15th, 1846, it was provided that all sums of money which should thereafter be drawn from the treasury, for educational purposes, should be considered as a charge upon the moiety of the proceeds of the sales of the public lands set apart for the purpose of constituting a school fund. This provision continued in force until the reoerganization of the fund, in 1854. By the law of that year (chap. 300), it was provided that one half of the annual income of the fund should be apportioned and distributed among the towns according to the then existing provisions of law, and that the educational expenses before referred to should be chargeable to and paid from the other half of the income of said fund. These provisions are now in force.

The limitation of the act of 1834, establishing the fund, and of the Revised Statutes, was removed by the law of 1851, chapter 112, and the amount of the fund was then fixed at one million and five hundred thousand dollars. By the act of 1854 the principal was limited to two millions of dollars. The Constitutional Convention of 1853 had, with great unanimity, declared it to be the duty of the Legislature to provide for the increase of the school fund to the sum of two millions of dollars; and, though the proposed constitution was rejected by the people, the provision concerning the fund was generally, if not universally, acceptable. Under these circumstances, the legislature of 1854 may be said to have acted in conformity to the known opinion and purpose of the state.

On the 1st of June, 1858, the principal of the fund was $1,522,898.41, including the sum of $1,843.68, added during the year preceding that date. In this statement no notice is taken of the rights of the school fund in the Western Railroad Loan Sinking Fund.

It may be observed that the committee of 1833 contemplated the establishment of a fund, with a capital of $1,634,418.32, and yet, after twenty-five years, the Massachusetts School Fund amounts to only $1,522,898.41. Its present means of increase are limited to the excess of one-half of the annual income over the current educational expenses. The increase for the year 1856-7 was $4,142.90; and for the year 1857-8, $1,843.68. With this resource only, and at this rate of increase, about one hundred and sixty years will be required for the augmentation of the capital to the maximum contemplated by existing laws. But the educational wants of the state are such that even this scanty supply must soon cease. It is then due to the magnitude of the proposition for the considerable and speedy increase of the school fund, that its necessity, if possible, or its utility, at least, should be satisfactorily demonstrated; and it is for this purpose that I have already presented a brief sketch of its history in connection with the legislation of the commonwealth, and that I now proceed to set forth its relations to the practical work of public instruction.

When the fund was instituted, public sentiment in regard to education was lethargic, if not retrograding. The mere fact of the action of the Legislature lent new importance to the cause of learning, inspired its advocates with additional zeal, gave efficiency to previous and subsequent legislation, and, as though there had been a new creation, evoked order out of chaos.

Previous to 1834 there was no trustworthy information concerning the schools of the state. The law of 1826, chapter 143, section 8, required each town to make a report to the Secretary of the Commonwealth, of the amount of money paid, the number of schools, the aggregate number of months that the schools of each city and town were kept, the number of male and female teachers, the whole number of pupils, the number of private schools and academies and the number of pupils therein, the amount of compensation paid to the instructors of private schools and academies, and the number of persons between the ages of fourteen and twenty-one years who were unable to read and write. The Legislature did not provide a penalty for neglect of this provision, nor does there seem to have been any just method of compelling obedience. The Secretary of the Commonwealth sent out blank forms of returns, and replies were received from two hundred and fourteen towns, while eighty-eight were entirely silent.

The returns received furnish a series of interesting facts for the year 1826. There were one thousand seven hundred and twenty-six district schools, supported at an expense of two hundred and twenty-six thousand two hundred and nineteen dollars and ninety cents ($226,219.90), while there were nine hundred and fifty-three academies and private schools maintained at a cost of $192,455.10. The whole number of children attending public schools was 117,186, and the number educated in private schools and academies was 25,083. The expense, therefore, was $7.67 per pupil in the private schools, and only $1.93 each in the public schools. These facts are indicative of the condition of public sentiment. About one-sixth of the children of the state were educated in academies and private schools, at a cost equal to about six-sevenths of the amount paid for the education of the remaining five-sixths, who attended the public schools. The returns also showed that there were 2,974 children between the ages of seven and fourteen years who did not attend school, and 530 persons over fourteen years of age who were unable to read and write. The incompleteness of these returns detracts from their value; but, as those towns where the greatest interest existed were more likely to respond to the call of the Legislature, it is probable that the actual condition of the whole state was below that of the two hundred and eighty-eight towns. The interest which the law of 1826 had called forth was temporary; and in March, 1832, the Committee on Education, to whom was referred an order with instructions to inquire into the expediency of providing a fund to furnish, in certain cases, common schools with apparatus, books, and such other aid as may be necessary to raise the standard of common school education, say that they desire more accurate knowledge than could then be obtained. The returns required by law were in many cases wholly neglected, and in others they were inaccurately made. In the year 1831 returns were received from only eighty-six towns. In order to obtain the desired information, a special movement was made by the Legislature. The report of the committee was printed in all the newspapers that published the laws of the commonwealth, and the Secretary was directed to prepare and present to the Legislature an abstract of the returns which should be received from the several towns for the year 1832. The result of this extraordinary effort was seen in returns from only ninety-nine of three hundred and five towns, and even a large part of these were confessedly inaccurate or incomplete. They present, however, some remarkable facts.

The following table, prepared from the returns of 1832, shows the relative standing and cost of public and private schools in a part of the principal towns. It appears that the towns named in the table were educating rather more than two-thirds of their children in the public schools, at an expense of $2.88 each, and nearly one-third in private schools, at a cost of $12.70 each, and that the total expenditure for public instruction was about thirty-six per cent. of the outlay for educational purposes.

Column Headings: A - Amount paid for public instruction during the year. B - Whole No. of Pupils in the Public Schools in the course of the yr. C - Number of Academies and Private Schools. D - Number of Pupils in Academies and Private Schools and not attending Public Schools. E -Estimated amount of compensation of Instructors of Academies and Private Schools.

============================================ TOWNS. A B C D E - - Beverly, $1,800 00 580 28 490 $2,365 33 Bradford, 750 00 600 9 177 1,725 00 Danvers, 2,000 00 873 6 150 1,500 00 Marblehead, 2,200 00 650 31 650 3,800 00 Cambridge, 8,600 00 970 16 441 5,782 00 Medford, 1,200 00 284 6 151 2,372 00 Newton, 1,600 00 542 3 100 2,975 00 Amherst, 850 00 556 2 270 4,600 00 Springfield, 3,600 00 1,957 4 800 2,500 00 Greenfield, 633 75 216 2 65 1,400 00 Dorchester, 2,599 00 613 15 124 1,800 00 Quincy, 1,800 00 465 7 106 2,741 50 Roxbury, 4,450 00 836 12 313 8,218 00 New Bedford, 4,000 00 1,268 15 537 6,300 00 Hingham, 2,144 00 703 8 180 2,625 00 Provincetown, 584 32 450 4 140 800 00 Edgartown, 450 00 350 10 100 2,700 00 Nantucket, 2,633,40 882 50 1,084 10,795 00 - - 18 Towns, $36,894 47 12,795 228 5,378 $64,948 83 ============================================

The evidence is sufficient that the public schools were in a deplorable and apparently hopeless condition.

The change that has been effected in the eighteen towns named may be seen by comparing the following table with the one already given. In 1832, 64 per cent. of the amount paid for education was expended in academies and private schools, while in 1858 only 24 per cent. was so expended. In the same period the amount raised for public schools increased from less than thirty-seven thousand dollars to more than two hundred and fifty-nine thousand dollars. At the first period, the attendance of pupils upon academies and private schools was nearly 30 per cent. of the whole number, while in 1858 it was only 8 per cent. The private schools of some of these towns were established recently, and are sustained in a degree by pupils who are not inhabitants of the state, but who have come among us for the purpose of enjoying the culture which our teachers and schools, private as well as public, are able to furnish. If, as seems probable, the number of foreign pupils was less in 1832 than in 1858, the decrease of pupils in private schools would be greater than is indicated by the tables. The cost of education, as it appears by this table, is rather more than thirty dollars per pupil in the private schools, and only eight dollars and forty-nine cents in the public schools. In the following table, Bradford includes Groveland, Danvers includes South Danvers, Springfield includes Chicopee, and Roxbury includes West Roxbury. This is rendered necessary for the purposes of comparison, as Groveland, South Danvers, Chicopee, and West Roxbury, have been incorporated since 1832.

Column Headings: A - Amount paid for Public Schools in 1857-8, including tax, income of Surplus Revenue, and of State School Fund, when such income is appropriated for such schools, and exclusive of sums paid for school-houses. B - Whole No. of pupils attending Public Schools in 1857-8—the largest No. returned as in attendance during any one term. C - Number of incorporated and unincorporated Academies and Private Schools returned in 1858. D - Estimated attendance in Academies and Private Schools in 1857-8. E - Estimated amount of tuition paid in Academies and Priv. Schools in 1857-8.

====================================================== TOWNS. A B C D E - - - - Beverly, $5,748 20 1,114 1 10 $100 00 Bradford, 2,416 47 513 2 84 1,720 00 Danvers, 14,829 52 2,066 1 40 360 00 Marblehead, 7,311 10 1,188 6 160 1,390 00 Cambridge, 37,420 86 4,710 14 400 15,000 00 Medford, 7,794 44 837 5 130 3,800 00 Newton, 12,263 50 1,138 8 308 22,800 00 Amherst, 2,142 80 536 5 121 3,934 00 Springfield, 27,324 84 3,864 6 Greenfield, 2,627 50 589 2 25 1,800 00 Dorchester, 22,338 51 1,795 1 31 600 00 Quincy, 8,861 46 1,260 2 20 225 00 Roxbury, 50,000 00 4,400 25 561 10,600 00 New Bedford, 36,074 25 3,548 20 434 15,074 00 Hingham, 4,904 13 728 2 71 1,717 56 Provincetown, 3,147 26 689 Edgartown, 2,578 63 380 8 96 200 00 Nantucket, 11,596 27 1,198 13 259 3,466 23 - - - - Totals, $259,379 74 30,553 121 2,750 $82,786 79 ==================================================

The Legislature of 1834 acted with wisdom and energy. The school fund having been established, the towns were next required to furnish answers to certain questions that were substituted for the requisition of the statute of 1826, and any town whose committee failed to make the return was to be deprived of its share of the income of the school fund, whenever it should be first distributed. (Res. 1834, chap. 78.)

Those measures were in the highest degree salutary. There were 305 towns in the state, and returns were received from 261. There was still a want of accuracy and completeness; but from this time forth the state secured what had never before been attained,—intelligent legislation by the government, and intelligent cooeperation and support by the people.

In December, 1834, the Secretary of the Commonwealth prepared an aggregate of the returns received, of which the following is a copy:

Number of towns from which returns have been received, 261 Number of school districts, 2,251 Number of male children attending school from four to sixteen years of age, 67,499 Number of female children attending school from four to sixteen years of age, 63,728 Number over sixteen and under twenty-one unable to read and write, 158 Number of male instructors, 1,967 Number of female instructors, 2,388 Amount raised by tax to support schools, $810,178 87 Amount raised by contribution to support schools, 15,141 25 Average number of scholars attending academies and private schools, 24,749 Estimated amount paid for tuition in academies and private schools, $276,575 75 Local funds—Yes, 71 Local funds—No, 181

Thus, by the institution of the school fund, provision was made for a system of annual returns, from which has been drawn a series of statistical tables, that have not only exhibited the school system as a whole and in its parts, but have also contributed essentially to its improvement.

These statistics have been so accurate and complete, for many years, as to furnish a safe basis for legislation; and they have at the same time been employed by the friends of education as means for awakening local interest, and stimulating and encouraging the people to assume freely and bear willingly the burdens of taxation. It is now easy for each town, or for any inhabitant, to know what has been done in any other town; and, as a consequence, those that do best are a continual example to those that, under ordinary circumstances, might be indifferent. The establishment and efficiency of the school-committee system is due also to the same agency. There are, I fear, some towns that would now neglect to choose a school committee, were there not a small annual distribution of money by the state; but, in 1832, the duty was often either neglected altogether, or performed in such a manner that no appreciable benefit was produced. The superintending committee is the most important agency connected with our system of instruction. In some portions of the state the committees are wholly, and in others they are partly, responsible for the qualifications of teachers; they everywhere superintend and give character to the schools, and by their annual reports they exert a large influence over public opinion. The people now usually elect well-qualified men; and it is believed that the extracts from the local reports, published annually by the Board of Education, constitute the best series of papers in the language upon the various topics that have from time to time been considered.[4] By the publication of these abstracts, the committees, and indeed the people generally, are made acquainted with everything that has been done, or is at any time doing, in the commonwealth. Improvements that would otherwise remain local are made universal; information in regard to general errors is easily communicated, and the errors themselves are speedily removed, while the system is, in all respects, rendered homogeneous and efficient.

Nor does it seem to be any disparagement of Massachusetts to assume that, in some degree, she is indebted to the school fund for the consistent and steady policy of the Legislature, pursued for more than twenty years, and executed by the agency of the Board of Education. In this period, normal schools have been established, which have educated a large number of teachers, and exerted a powerful and ever increasing influence in favor of good learning. Teachers' institutes have been authorized, and the experiment successfully tested. Agents of the Board of Education have been appointed, so that it is now possible, by the aid of both these means, as is shown by accompanying returns and statements, to afford, each year, to the people of a majority of the towns an opportunity to confer with those who are specially devoted to the work of education. In all this period of time, the Legislature has never been called upon to provide money for the expenses which have thus been incurred; and, though a rigid scrutiny has been exercised over the expenditures of the educational department, measures for the promotion of the common schools have never been considered in relation to the general finances of the commonwealth. While some states have hesitated, and others have vacillated, Massachusetts has had a consistent, uniform, progressive policy, which is due in part to the consideration already named, and in part, no doubt, to a popular opinion, traditional and historical in its origin, but sustained and strengthened by the measures and experience of the last quarter of a century, that a system of public instruction is so important an element of general prosperity as to justify all needful appropriations for its support.

It may, then, be claimed for the Massachusetts School Fund, that the expectations of those by whom it was established have been realized; that it has given unity and efficiency to the school system; that it has secured accurate and complete returns from all the towns; that it has, consequently, promoted a good understanding between the Legislature and the people; that it has increased local taxation, but has never been a substitute for it; and that it has enabled the Legislature, at all times and in every condition of the general finances, to act with freedom in regard to those agencies which are deemed essential to the prosperity of the common schools of the state.

Having thus, in the history of the school fund, fully justified its establishment, so in its history we find sufficient reasons for its sacred preservation. While other communities, and even other states, have treated educational funds as ordinary revenue, subject only to an obligation on the part of the public to bestow an annual income on the specified object, Massachusetts has ever acted in a fiduciary relation, and considered herself responsible for the principal as well as the income of the fund, not only to this generation, but to every generation that shall occupy the soil, and inherit the name and fame of this commonwealth.

It only remains for me to present the reasons which render an increase of the capital of the fund desirable, if not necessary. The annual income of the existing fund amounts to about ninety-three thousand dollars, one-half of which is distributed among the towns and cities, in proportion to the number of persons in each between the ages of five and fifteen years. The distribution for the year 1857-8 amounted to twenty cents and eight mills for each child. The following table shows the annual distribution to the towns from the year 1836; the whole number of children for each year except 1836 and 1840, when the entire population was the basis; and the amount paid on account of each child since the year 1849, when the law establishing the present method of distribution was enacted:

=================================================== Income per Year. Children. Income. pupil. -+ + -+ 1836. 473,684 $16,230 57[5] 1837. 160,676 19,002 74[6] 1838. 174,984 19,970 47 1839. 180,070 21,358 81 1840. 701,331 21,202 64[7] 1841. 179,967 32,109 32[8] 1842. 179,917 24,006 89 1843. 173,416 24,094 87 1844. 158,193 22,932 71 1845. 170,823 28,248 35 1846. 195,032 30,150 27 1847. 197,475 34,511 89 ===================================================

=================================================== Per Pupil in Cents Year. Children. Income. & Mills. -+ + -+ 1848. 210,403 $33,874 87 1849. 210,770 33,723 20 1850. 182,003 37,370 51[9] .205 1851. 192,849 41,462 54 .215 1852. 198,050 44,066 12 .222 1853. 199,292 46,908 10 .235 1854. 202,102 48,504 48 .240 1855. 210,761 46,788 94 .222 1856. 221,902 44,842 75 .202 1857. 220,336 46,783 64 .212 1858. 222,860 46,496 19 .208 ===================================================

It was contemplated by the founders of the school fund that an amount might safely be distributed among the towns equal to one-third of the sums raised by taxation, but the state is really furnishing only one-thirtieth of the annual expenditure. A distribution corresponding to the original expectation is neither desirable nor possible; but a substantial addition might be made without in any degree diminishing the interest of the people, or relieving them from taxation. The income of the school fund has been three times used as a means of increasing the appropriations in the towns. It is doubtful whether, without an addition to the fund, this power can be again applied; and yet there are, according to the last returns, twenty-two towns that do not raise a sum for schools equal to $2.50 for each child between the ages of five and fifteen years; and there are fifty-two towns whose appropriations are less than three dollars. When the average annual expenditure is over six dollars, the minimum ought not to be less than three.

It is to be considered that, as population increases, the annual personal distribution will diminish, and consequently that the bond now existing between the Legislature and people will be weakened. Moreover, any definite sum of money is worth less than it was twenty years ago; and it is reasonably certain that the same sum will be less valuable in 1860, and yet less valuable in 1870, than it is now. Hence, if the fund remain nominally the same, it yet suffers a practical annual decrease. It is further to be presumed that the Legislature will find it expedient to advance in its legislation from year to year. A small number of towns, few or many, may not always approve of what is done, and it is quite important that the influence of the fund should be sufficient to enable the state to execute its policy with uniformity and precision.

As is well known, the expenses of the educational department are defrayed from the other half of the income of the fund. From this income the forty-eight scholarships in the colleges, the Normal Schools, the Teachers' Institutes, the Agents of the Board of Education, are supported, and the salaries of the Secretary and the Assistant-Secretary are paid. As has been stated, the surplus carried to the capital of the fund in June last was only $1,843.68. The objects of expenditure, already named, may be abolished, but no reasonable plan of economy can effect much saving while they exist. It is also reasonably certain that the expenses of the department must be increased. The law now provides for twelve Teachers' Institutes, annually, and there were opportunities during the present year for holding them; but, in order that one agent might be constantly employed, and a second employed for the term of six months, I limited the number of sessions to ten.

The salaries of the teachers in the Normal Schools are low, and the number of persons employed barely adequate to the work to be done. Some change, involving additional expense, is likely to be called for in the course of a few years.

In view of the eminent aid which the school fund has rendered to the cause of education, with due deference to the wisdom and opinions of its founders, and with just regard to the existing and probable necessities of the state in connection with the cause of education, I earnestly favor the increase of the school fund by the addition of a million and a half of dollars.

Nor does the proposition for the state to appropriate annually $180,000 in aid of the common schools seem unreasonable, when it is considered that the military expenses are $65,000, the reformatory and correctional about $200,000, the charitable about $45,000, and the pauper expenses nearly $250,000 more, all of which will diminish as our schools are year by year better qualified to give thorough and careful intellectual, moral, and religious culture.

This increase seems to be necessary in order that the Massachusetts School Fund may furnish aid to the common schools during the next quarter of a century proportionate to the relative influence exerted by the same agency during the last twenty-five years. Nor will such an addition give occasion for any apprehension that the zeal of the people will be diminished in the least. Were there to be no increase of population in the state, the distribution for each pupil would never exceed forty cents, or about one-fifteenth of the amount now raised by taxation.

So convinced are the people of Massachusetts of the importance of common schools, and so much are they accustomed to taxation for their support, that there is no occasion to hesitate, lest we should follow the example of those communities where large funds, operating upon an uneducated and inexperienced popular opinion, have injured rather than benefited the public schools. The ancient policy of the commonwealth will be continued; but, whenever the people see the government, by solemn act, manifesting its confidence in schools and learning, they will be encouraged to guard and sustain the institutions of the fathers.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] An eminent friend of education, and an Englishman, speaking of the reports for the year 1866-7, says: "The views enunciated by your local committees, while they have the sobriety indicative of practical knowledge, are at the same time enlightened and expansive. The writers of such reports must be of inestimable aid to your schoolmasters, standing as they do between the teacher and the parent, and exercising the most wholesome influence on both. Let me remark, in passing, that I am struck with the power of composition evinced in these provincial papers. Clear exposition, great command of the best English, correctness and even elegance of style, are their characteristics."

[5] Distributed among the cities and towns, according to an Act of 1835. (Stat. 138, Sec. 2.)

[6] Distributed among the cities and towns, according to the number of persons in each between the ages of four and sixteen years. (Rev. Stat., chap. 23, Sec. 67.)

[7] Income distributed among the cities and towns, according to population, under an Act passed Feb. 22, 1840. (Stat. 1840, Chap. 7.) This act was repealed by an act passed Feb. 8, 1841. (Stat. 1841, chap. 17, Sec. 2.)

[8] Distributed among the cities and towns, according to the number of persons in each between the ages of four and sixteen years. (Stat. 1841, chap. 17, Sec. 2.)

[9] Distributed among the cities and towns, according to the number of persons in each between the ages of five and fifteen years. (Stat. 1849, chap. 117, Sec. 2.)



A SYSTEM OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION.

[An Address before the Barnstable Agricultural Society, Oct. 8, 1857.]

In the month of February, 1855, a distinguished American, who has read much, and acquired, by conversation, observation, and travels in this country and Europe, the highest culture of American society, wrote these noticeable sentences: "The farmers have not kept pace, in intelligence, with the rest of the community. They do not put brain-manure enough into their acres. Our style of farming is slovenly, dawdling, and stupid, and the waste, especially in manure, is immense. I suppose we are about, in farming, where the Lowlands of Scotland were fifty years ago; and what immense strides agriculture has made in Great Britain since the battle of Waterloo, and how impossible it would have been for the farmers to have held their own without!"[10]

It would not be civil for me to endorse these statements as introductory to a brief address upon Agricultural Education; but I should not accept them at all did they not contain truth enough to furnish a text for a layman's discourse before an assembly of farmers.

Competent American travellers concur in the opinion that the Europeans generally, and especially our brethren of England, Ireland, and Scotland, are far in advance of us in scientific and practical agriculture. This has been stated or admitted by Mr. Colman, President Hitchcock, and last by Mr. French, who has recently visited Europe under the auspices of the National Agricultural Society.

There are good reasons for the past and for the existing superiority of the Old World; and there are good reasons, also, why this superiority should not much longer continue. Europe is old,—America is young. Land has been cultivated for centuries in Europe, and often by the same family; its capacity tested, its fitness or unfitness for particular crops proved, the local and special effects of different fertilizers well known, and the experience of many generations has been preserved, so as to be equivalent to a like experience, in time and extent, by the present occupants of the soil.

In America there are no family estates, nor long occupation by the same family of the same spot. Cultivated lands have changed hands as often as every twenty-five years from the settlement of the country. The capacity of our soils to produce, when laboriously and systematically cultivated, has not been ascertained; there has been no accumulation of experience by families, and but little by the public; and the effort, in many sections, has been to draw as much as possible from the land, while little or nothing was returned to it. Farming, as a whole, has not been a system of cultivation, which implies improvement, but a process of exhaustion. It has been easier for the farmer, though, perhaps, not as economical, if all the elements necessary to a correct opinion could be combined, to exchange his worn-out lands for fresh soils, than to adopt an improving system of agriculture. The present has been consulted; the future has been disregarded. As the half-civilized hunters of the pampas of Buenos Ayres make indiscriminate slaughter of the myriads of wild cattle that roam over the unfenced prairies of the south, and preserve the hides only for the commerce and comfort of the world, so we have clutched from nature whatever was in sight or next at hand, regardless of the actual and ultimate wrong to physical and vegetable life; and, as the pioneers of a better civilization now gather up the bones long neglected and bleaching under tropical suns and tropical rains, and by the agency of trade, art, and industry, extort more wealth from them than was originally derived from the living animals, so we shall find that worn-out lands, when subjected to skilful, careful, scientific husbandry, are quite as profitable as the virgin soils, which, from the day of the migration into the Connecticut valley to the occupancy of the Missouri and the Kansas, have proved so tempting to our ancestors and to us. But there has been some philosophy, some justice, and considerable necessity, in the course that has been pursued. Subsistence is the first desire; and, in new countries where forests are to be felled, dwellings erected, public institutions established, roads and bridges built, settlers cannot be expected, in the cultivation of the land, to look much beyond the present moment. And they are entitled to the original fertility of the soil. Europe passed through the process of settlement and exhaustion many centuries ago. Her recovery has been the work of centuries,—ours may be accomplished in a few years, even within the limits of a single life. The fact from which an improving system of agriculture must proceed is apparent in the northern and central Atlantic states, and is, in a measure, appreciated in the West. We have all heard that certain soils were inexhaustible. The statement was first made of the valley of the Connecticut, then of the Genesee country, then of Ohio, then of Illinois, and occasionally we now hear similar statements of Kansas, or California, or the valley of the Willamette. In the nature of things these statements were erroneous. The idea of soil, in reason and in the use of the word, contains the idea of exhaustion. Soil is not merely the upper stratum of the earth; it is a substance which possesses the power, under certain circumstances, of giving up essential properties of its own for the support of vegetable and ultimately of animal life. What it gives up it loses, and to the extent of its loss it is exhausted. It is no more untrue to say that the great cities of the world have not, in their building, exhausted the forests and the mines to any extent, than to say that the annual abundant harvests of corn and wheat have not, in any degree, exhausted the prairies and bottom lands of the West. Some lands may be exhausted for particular crops in a single year; others in five years, others in ten, while others may yield undiminished returns for twenty, fifty, or even a hundred years. But it is plain that annual cropping without rotation, and without compensation by nature or art, must finally deprive the soil of the required elements. Nor should we deceive ourselves by considering only those exceptions whose existence is due to the fact that nature makes compensation for the loss. Annual or occasional irrigation with rich deposits,—as upon the Nile and the Connecticut,—allowing the land to lie fallow, rotation of crops and the growth of wood, are so many expedients and provisions by which nature increases the productiveness of the earth. Nor is a great depth of soil, as two, five, ten, or twenty feet, any security against its ultimate impoverishment. Only a certain portion is available. It has been found in the case of coal-mines which lie at great depths, that they are, for the present, valueless; and we cannot attach much importance to soil that is twenty feet below the surface. Neither cultivation nor vegetation can go beyond a certain depth; and wherever vegetable life exists, its elements are required and appropriated. Great depth of soil is desirable; but, with our present knowledge and means of culture, it furnishes no security against ultimate exhaustion.

The fact that all soils are exhaustible establishes the necessity for agricultural education, by whose aid the processes of impoverishment may be limited in number and diminished in force; and the realization of this fact by the public generally is the only justification necessary for those who advocate the immediate application of means to the proposed end.

And, gentlemen, if you will allow a festive day to be marred by a single word of criticism, I feel constrained to say, that a great obstacle to the increased usefulness, further elevation, and higher respectability, of agriculture, is in the body of farmers themselves. And I assume this to be so upon the supposition that agriculture is not a cherished pursuit in many farmers' homes; that the head of the family often regards his life of labor upon the land as a necessity from which he would willingly escape; that he esteems other pursuits as at once less laborious, more profitable, and more honorable, than his own; that children, both sons and daughters, under the influence of parents, both father and mother, receive an education at home, which neither school, college, nor newspaper, can counteract, that leads them to abandon the land for the store, the shop, the warehouse, the professions, or the sea.

The reasonable hope of establishing a successful system of agricultural education is not great where such notions prevail.

Agriculture is not to attain to true practical dignity by the borrowed lustre that eminent names, ancient and modern, may have lent to it, any more than the earth itself is warmed and made fruitful by the aurora borealis of an autumn night. Our system of public instruction, from the primary school to the college, rests mainly upon the public belief in its importance, its possibility, and its necessity. It is easy on a professional holiday to believe in the respectability of agriculture; but is it a living sentiment, controlling your conduct, and inspiring you with courage and faith in your daily labor? Does it lead you to contemplate with satisfaction the prospect that your son is to be a farmer also, and that your daughter is to be a farmer's wife? These, I imagine, are test questions which not all farmers nor farmers' wives can answer in the affirmative. Else, why the custom among farmers' sons of making their escape, at the earliest moment possible, from the labors and restraints of the farm? Else, why the disposition of the farmer's daughter to accept other situations, not more honorable, and in the end not usually more profitable, than the place of household aid to the business of the home? How, then, can a system of education be prosperous and efficient, when those for whom it is designed neither respect their calling nor desire to pursue it? You will not, of course, imagine that I refer, in these statements, to all farmers; there are many exceptions; but my own experience and observation lead me to place confidence in the fitness of these remarks, speaking generally of the farmers of New England. It is, however, true, and the statement of the truth ought not to be omitted, that the prevalent ideas among us are much in advance of what they were ten years ago. In what has been accomplished we have ground for hope, and even security for further advancement.

I look, then, first and chiefly to an improved home culture, as the necessary basis of a system of agricultural education. Christian education, culture, and life, depend essentially upon the influences of home; and we feel continually the importance of kindred influences upon our common school system.

It will not, of course, be wise to wait, in the establishment of a system of agricultural education, until we are satisfied that every farmer is prepared for it; in the beginning sufficient support may be derived from a small number of persons, but in the end it must be sustained by the mass of those interested. Other pursuits and professions must meet the special claims made upon them, and in the matter of agricultural education they cannot be expected to do more than assent to what the farmers themselves may require.

An important part of a system of agricultural education has been, as it seems to me, already established. I speak of our national, state, county, and town associations for the promotion of agriculture. The first three may educate the people through their annual fairs, by their publications, and by the collection and distribution of rare seeds, plants, and animals, that are not usually within reach of individual farmers. By such means, and others less noticeable, these agencies can exert a powerful influence upon the farmers of the country; but their thorough, systematic education must be carried on at home. And for local and domestic education I think we must rely upon our public schools, upon town clubs or associations of farmers, and upon scientific men who may be appointed by the government to visit the towns, confer with the people, and receive and communicate information upon the agricultural resources and defects of the various localities. It will be observed that in this outline of a plan of education I omit the agricultural college. This omission is intentional, and I will state my reasons for it. I speak, however, of the present; the time may come when such an institution will be needed. In Massachusetts, Mr. Benjamin Bussey has made provision for a college at Roxbury, and Mr. Oliver Smith has made similar provision for a college at Northampton; but these bequests will not be available for many years. In England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Belgium, Prussia, Russia, Austria, and the smaller states of Europe, agricultural schools and colleges have been established; and they appear to be the most numerous where the ignorance of the people is the greatest. England has five colleges and schools, Ireland sixty-three, while Scotland has only a professorship in each of her colleges at Aberdeen and Edinburgh. In France, there are seventy-five agricultural schools; but in seventy of them—called inferior schools—the instruction is a compound of that given in our public schools and the discipline of a good farmer upon his land, with some special attention to agricultural reading and farm accounts. Such schools are not desired and would not be patronized among us. When an agricultural school is established, it must be of a higher grade,—it must take rank with the colleges of the country. President Hitchcock, in his report, published in 1851, states that six professors would be required; that the first outlay would be sixty-seven thousand dollars, and that the annual expense would be six thousand and two hundred dollars. By these arrangements and expenditures he contemplates the education of one hundred students, who are to pay annually each for tuition the sum of forty dollars. It was also proposed to connect an agricultural department with several of the existing academies, at an annual expense of three thousand dollars more. These estimates of cost seem low, nor do I find in this particular any special objection to the recommendation made by the commissioners of the government; any other scheme is likely to be quite as expensive in the end.

My chief objection is, that such a plan is not comprehensive enough, and cannot, in a reasonable time, sensibly affect the average standard of agricultural learning among us. The graduation of fifty students a year would be equal to one in a thousand or fifteen hundred of the farmers of the state; and in ten years there would not be one professionally educated farmer in a hundred. We are not, of course, to overlook the indirect influence of such a school, through its students annually sent forth: the better modes of culture adopted by them would, to some extent, be copied by others; nor are we to overlook the probability of a prejudice against the institution and its graduates, growing out of the republican ideas of equality prevailing among us. But the struggle against mere prejudice would be an honorable struggle, if, in the hour of victory, the college could claim to have reformed and elevated materially the practices and ideas of the farmers of the country. I fear that even victory under such circumstances would not be complete success. An institution established in New England must look to the existing peculiarities of our country, rather than venture at once upon the adoption of schemes that may have been successful elsewhere. Here every farmer is a laborer himself, employing usually from one to three hands, and they are often persons who look to the purchase and cultivation of a farm on their own account; while in England the master farmer is an overseer rather than a laborer. The number of men in Europe who own land or work it on their own account is small; the number of laborers whose labors are directed by the proprietors and farmers is quite large. Under these circumstances, if the few are educated, the work will go successfully on; while here, our agricultural education ought to reach the great body of those who labor upon the land. Will a college in each state answer the demand for agricultural education now existing? Is it safe in any country, or in any profession or pursuit, to educate a few, and leave the majority to the indirect influence of the culture thus bestowed? And is it philosophical, in this country, where there is a degree of personal and professional freedom such as is nowhere else enjoyed, to found a college or higher institution of learning upon the general and admitted ignorance of the people in the given department? or is it wiser, by elementary training and the universal diffusion of better ideas, to make the establishment of the college the necessity of the culture previously given? Every new school, not a college, makes the demand for the college course greater than it was before; and the advance made in our public schools increases the students in the colleges and the university. We build from the primary school to the college; and without the primary school and its dependents,—the grammar, high school, and academy,—the colleges would cease to exist. This view of education supports the statement that an agricultural college is not the foundation of a system of agricultural training, but a result that is to be reached through a preliminary and elementary course of instruction. What shall that course be? I say, first, the establishment of town or neighborhood societies of farmers and others interested in agriculture. These societies ought to be auxiliary to the county societies, and they never can become their rivals or enemies unless they are grossly perverted in their management and purposes. As such societies must be mutual and voluntary in their character, they can be established in any town where there are twenty, ten, or even five persons who are disposed to unite together. Its object would, of course, be the advancement of practical agriculture; and it would look to theories and even to science as means only for the attainment of a specified end. The exercises of such societies would vary according to the tastes and plans of the members and directors; but they would naturally provide for discussions and conversations among themselves, lectures from competent persons, the establishment of a library, and for the collection of models and drawings of domestic animals, models of varieties of fruit, specimens of seeds, grasses, and grains, rocks, minerals, and soils. The discussions and conversations would be based upon the actual observation and experience of the members; and agriculture would at once become better understood and more carefully practised by each person who intended to contribute to the exercises of the meeting.

Until the establishment of agricultural journals, there were no means by which the results of individual experience could be made known to the mass of farmers; and, even now, men of the largest experience are not the chief contributors.

Wherever a local club exists, it is always possible to compare the knowledge of the different members; and the results of such comparison may, when deemed desirable, be laid before the public at large. It is also in the power of such an organization thoroughly and at once to test any given experiment. The attention of this section of the country has been directed to the culture of the Chinese sugar-cane; and merchants, economists, and statesmen, as well as the farmers themselves, are interested in the speedy and satisfactory solution of so important an industrial problem. Had the attention of a few local societies in different parts of New England been directed to the culture, with special reference to its feasibility and profitableness, a definite result might have been reached the present year. The growth of flax, both in the means of cultivation and in economy, is a subject of great importance. Many other crops might also be named, concerning which opposite, not to say vague, opinions prevail. The local societies may make these trials through the agency of individual members better than they can be made by county and state societies, and better than they can usually be made upon model or experimental farms. It will often happen upon experimental farms that the circumstances do not correspond to the condition of things among the farmers. The combined practical wisdom of such associations must be very great; and I have but to refer to the published minutes of the proceedings of the Concord Club to justify this statement in its broadest sense. The meetings of such a club have all the characteristics of a school of the highest order. Each member is at the same time a teacher and a pupil. The meeting is to the farmer what the court-room is to the lawyer, the hospital to the physician, and the legislative assembly to the statesman.

Moot courts alone will not make skilful lawyers; the manikin is but an indifferent teacher of anatomy; and we may safely say that no statesman was ever made so by books, schools, and street discussions, without actual experience in some department of government.

It is, of course, to be expected that an agricultural college would have the means of making experiments; but each experiment could be made only under a single set of circumstances, while the agency of local societies, in connection with other parts of the plan that I have the honor diffidently to present, would convert at once a county or a state into an experimental farm for a given time and a given purpose. The local club being always practical and never theoretical, dealing with things always and never with signs, presenting only facts and never conjectures, would, as a school for the young farmer, be quite equal, and in some respects superior, to any that the government can establish. But, it may be asked, will you call that a school which is merely an assembly of adults without a teacher? I answer that technically it is not a school, but that in reality such an association is a school in the best use of the word. A school is, first, for the development of powers and qualities whose germs already exist; then for the acquisition of knowledge previously possessed by others; then for the prosecution of original inquiries and investigations. The associations of which I speak would possess all these powers, and contemplate all these results; but that their powers might be more efficient, and for the advancement of agriculture generally, it seems to me fit and proper for the state to appoint scientific and practical men as agents of the Board of Agriculture, and lecturers upon agricultural science and labor. If an agricultural college were founded, a farm would be required, and at least six professors would be necessary. Instead of a single farm, with a hundred young men upon it, accept gratuitously, as you would no doubt have opportunity, the use of many farms for experiments and repeated trials of crops, and, at the same time, educate, not a hundred only, but many thousand young men, nearly as well in theory and science, and much better in practical labor, than they could be educated in a college. Six professors, as agents, could accomplish a large amount of necessary work; possibly, for the present, all that would be desired. Assume, for this inquiry, that Massachusetts contains three hundred agricultural towns; divide these towns into sections of fifty each; then assign one section to each agent, with the understanding that his work for the year is to be performed in that section, and then that he is to be transferred to another. By a rotation of appointments and a succession of labors, the varied attainments of the lecturers would be enjoyed by the whole commonwealth. But, it may be asked, what, specifically stated, shall the work of the agents be? Only suggestions can be offered in answer to this inquiry. An agent might, in the summer season, visit his fifty towns, and spend two days in each. While there, he could ascertain the kinds of crops, modes of culture, nature of soils, practical excellences, and practical defects, of the farmers; and he might also provide for such experiments as he desired to have made. It would, likewise, be in his power to give valuable advice, where it might be needed, in regard to farming proper, and also to the erection and repair of farm-buildings. I am satisfied that a competent agent would, in this last particular alone, save to the people a sum equal to the entire cost of his services. After this labor was accomplished, eight months would remain for the preparation and delivery of lectures in the fifty towns previously visited. These lectures might be delivered in each town, or the agent might hold meetings of the nature of institutes in a number of towns centrally situated. In either case, the lectures would be at once scientific and practical; and their practical character would be appreciated in the fact that a judicious agent would adapt his lectures to the existing state of things in the given locality. This could not be done by a college, however favorably situated, and however well accomplished in the material of education. It is probable that the lectures would be less scientific than those that would be given in a college; but when their superior practical character is considered, and when we consider also that they would be listened to by the great body of farmers, old and young, while those of the college could be enjoyed by a small number of youth only, we cannot doubt which would be the most beneficial to the state, and to the cause of agriculture in the country.

An objection to the plan I have indicated may be found in the belief that the average education of the farmers is not equal to a full appreciation of the topics and lectures to be presented. My answer is, that the lecturers must meet the popular intelligence, whatever it is. Nothing is to be assumed by the teacher; it is his first duty to ascertain the qualifications of his pupils. I am, however, led to the opinion that the schools of the country have already laid a very good basis for practical instruction in agriculture; and, if this be not so, then an additional argument will be offered for the most rapid advance possible in our systems of education. In any event, it is true that the public schools furnish a large part of the intellectual culture given in the inferior and intermediate agricultural schools of Europe.

The great defect in the plan I have presented is this: That no means are provided for the thorough education needed by those persons who are to be appointed agents, and no provision is made for testing the qualities of soils, and the elements of grains, grasses, and fruits. My answer to this suggestion is, that it is in part, at least, well founded; but that the scientific schools furnish a course of study in the natural sciences which must be satisfactory to the best educated farmer or professor of agricultural learning, and that analyses may be made in the laboratories of existing institutions.

It is my fortune to be able to read a letter from Professor Horsford, which furnishes a satisfactory view of the ability of the Scientific School at Cambridge.

"Cambridge, Sept. 19, 1857.

"MY DEAR SIR: The occupation incident to the opening of the term has prevented an earlier answer to your letter of inquiry in regard to the Scientific School.

"The Scientific School furnishes, I believe, the necessary scientific knowledge for students of agriculture (such as you mention), 'who have been well educated at our high schools, academies, or colleges, and have also been trained practically in the business of farming.' It provides:

"1st. Practical instruction in the modes of experimental investigation. This is, I know, an unrecognized department, but it is, perhaps, the better suited name to the course of instruction of our chemical department. It qualifies the student for the most direct methods of solving the practical problems which are constantly arising in practical agriculture. It includes the analysis of soils, the manufacture and testing of manures, the philosophy of improved methods of culture, of rotation of crops, of dairy production, of preserving fruits, meats, &c. It applies more or less directly to the whole subject of mechanical expedients.

"2d. Practical instruction in surveying, mensuration, and drawing.

"3d. And by lectures—in botany, geology, zoology, comparative anatomy, and natural philosophy.

"Some of them—indeed, all of them, if desired—might be pursued practically, and with the use of apparatus and specimens.

"This course contemplates a period of study of from one year to two and a half years, according to the qualification of the pupil at the outset. He appears an hour each day at the blackboard, where he shares the drill of a class, and where he acquires a facility of illustration, command of language, an address and thorough consciousness of real knowledge, which are of more value, in many cases, as you know, than almost any amount of simple acquisition. He also attends, on an average, about one lecture a day throughout the year. During the remaining time he is occupied with experimental work in the laboratory or field.

"The great difficulty with students of agriculture, who might care to come to the Scientific School, is the expense of living in Cambridge. If some farmer at a distance of three or four miles from college, where rents for rooms are low, would open a boarding-house for students of agriculture in the Scientific School, where the care of a kitchen garden and some stock might be intrusted to them, and where a farmer's plain table might be spread at the price at which laborers would be received, we might hope that our facilities would be taken advantage of on a larger scale. As it is, but few, comparatively, among our students, come to qualify themselves for farming."

I should, however, consider the arrangements proposed as temporary, and finally to be abandoned or made permanent, as experience should dictate.

It may be said, I think, without disparagement to the many distinguished and disinterested men who have labored for the advancement of agriculture, that the operations of the government and of the state and county societies have no plan or system by which, as a whole, they are guided. The county societies have been and are the chief means of influence and progress; but they have no power which can be systematically applied; their movements are variable, and their annual exhibitions do not always indicate the condition of agriculture in the districts represented. They have become, to a certain extent, localized in the vicinity of the towns where the fairs are held; and yet they do not possess the vigor which institutions positively local would enjoy.

The town clubs hold annual fairs; and these fairs should be made tributary, in their products and in the interest they excite, to the county fairs. Let the town fairs be held as early in the season as practicable, and then let each town send to the county fairs its first-class premium articles as the contributions of the local society, as well as of the individual producers. Thus a healthful and generous rivalry would be stirred up between the towns of a county as well as among the citizens of each town; and a county exhibition upon the plan suggested would represent at one view the general condition of agriculture in the vicinity. No one can pretend that this is accomplished by the present arrangements. Moreover, the county society, in its management and in its annual exhibitions, would possess an importance which it had not before enjoyed. As each town would be represented by the products of the dairy, the herd, and the field, so it would be represented by its men; and the annual fair of the county would be a truthful and complete exposition of its industrial standing and power.

Out of a system thus broad, popular, and strong, an agricultural college will certainly spring, if such an institution shall be needed. But is it likely that in a country where the land is divided, and the number of farmers is great, the majority will ever be educated in colleges, and upon strict scientific principles? I am ready to answer that such an expectation seems to me a mere delusion. The great body of young farmers must be educated by the example and practices of their elders, by their own efforts at individual and mutual improvement, and by the influence of agricultural journals, books, lecturers, and the example of thoroughly educated men. And, as thoroughly educated men, lecturers, journals, and books of a proper character, cannot be furnished without the aid of scientific schools and thorough culture, the farmers, as a body, are interested in the establishment of all institutions of learning which promise to advance any number of men, however small, in the mysteries of the profession; but, when we design a system of education for a class, common wisdom requires us to contemplate its influence upon each individual. The influence of a single college in any state, or in each state of this Union, would be exceedingly limited; but local societies and travelling lecturers could make an appreciable impression in a year upon the agricultural population of any state, and in New England the interest in the subject is such that there is no difficulty in founding town clubs, and making them at once the agents of the government and the schools for the people.

In the plan indicated, I have, throughout, assumed the disposition of the farmers to educate themselves. This assumption implies a certain degree of education already attained; for a consciousness of the necessity of education is only developed by culture, learning, and reflection. Such being the admitted fact, it remains that the farmers themselves ought at once to institute such means of self-improvement as are at their command. They are, in nearly every state of this Union, a majority of the voters, and the controlling force of society and the government; but I do not from these facts infer the propriety of a reliance on their part upon the powers which they may thus direct. However wisely said, when first said, it is not wise to "look to the government for too much;" and there can be no reasonable doubt of the ability of the farmers to institute and perfect such measures of self-education as are at present needed. But the spirit in which they enter upon this work must be broad, comprehensive, catholic. They will find something, I hope, of example, something of motive, something of power, in their experience as friends and supporters of our system of common school education; and something of all these, I trust, in the facts that this system is kept in motion by the self-imposed taxation of the whole people; that all individuals and classes of men, forgetting their differences of opinion in politics and religion, rally to its support, as being in itself a safe basis on which may be built whatever structures men of wisdom and virtue and piety may desire to erect, whether they labor first and chiefly for the world that is, or for that which is to come.

FOOTNOTE:

[10] Hon. George S. Hillard.



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THE END