Windham County Democrat. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1836-1853, 1851-07-16
EXTRACTS FROM AN ADDRESS ON
AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION,
BY AMOS DEAN, ESQ,


Before The Ns,c York State agricultural Society at the
annual Far al albany, Sept. 1850.
All education must be addressed to a man S
mind but there is nothing about him that is not
susceptible of being educated. Not only may
his mind be trained to think but his body may also
be taught to labor and both repay, in the most
ample manner, all tho educational means and APP
pliances expended on them.
1t is fact to which all history attests that mans
achievements, always and every where, have
been accomplished either by his large head or his
stawart body; have been wrought out either by
the thought of his mind or the labor of his mus
Gle. And the last has ever acted in subsection to
the first. 1t was made to do so, as it is secon-
dairy in its nature, and originally designed to exc
cute what the first had conceived. All that man
has ever yet succeeded in bringing forth and per-
fecting had previous existence as the subject of
his thought. The misfortune has generally been,
that the owners Of both these sources of results
have seldom been the same The thinking head
has almost invariably found its way to other
shoulders than those upon which has rested the
doom of physical labor. Thus the thought of the
mind, and the labor Of the muscle, Of the same
individual, have had long separation from each
other. The effect of this separation has been to
render the one despot, and the other slave ;
to degrade bodily labor, even while it was fur
nishng to the man of thought the very means
that rendered his continued existence here posi-
bic. 1t is the belief Of many in modern times that
it may be safe TO commit the guidance of the body
to its own head that labor may be best directed,
if placed under the dominion of its own mind !;
and most efficient in practical results Or in
other words that head and body, mind and mus
Gle may be safely committed to each others keep
ing, and be permitted to journey on together in
agreeable companionship, so long as one can de-
wise and the other execute, things that are essen
tal to their common good. This may seem an
amusing statement, but it is nevertheless the
grave problem of the age and the most important
one presented for solution to tie nineteenth century,
The worlds thinking has been hitherto done in
comparatively few minds. In making this asser-
ton / exclude from the domain of thought all
those business acts that are done from day TO day,
perhaps to the end Of long life The perfor-
nance of these comes to be little more than mere
matters of habit, and hence are independent of
original thought. The ideas and opinions that are
passing current in society, what are they but the
echoes of other minds A truly original thought
would find itself stranger in many minds that
pretend to think. | exclude also from thought
that entire train Of ideas that is constantly passing
through the mind of waking man. They are
mere day dreams, coming without an effort and
passing away without the accomplishment of any
good result 1t is the power of reasoning, of re-
Election, of consecutive thinking, which is alone
worthy of the name, and this is not so commonly
met with. What insist upon on this occasion
is, that so far as the pursuits of Agriculture are
concerned, your own minds may be safely intro
duced to your own bodies, and mutual intercourse
may proftably be established and grow up be-
tween them; that there is no original necessity Of
having all the living energies Of one person eX-
pended upon his brain in producing the power Of
thought, and all those of another upon his muscle
in developing that of labor; that the acquisition
of knowledge, and the power of thinking grow
ing out of it, although a lofty and a mighty pow
er, are, to reasonable extent, within the reach o.
every cutivator of the soil and that as far as
they are So we should account neither duty per
formed, nor destiny accomplished, until their at
tainment. In all other pursuits and callings, {
special education is conceded to be necessary
You educate your sons to be lawyers clergymen
physicians; to be merchants, mechanics and teach
ers but to be farmers, you are too apt to leave
them to themselves to allow them to come VI
untutored, untrimmed, unattended to, as their owl