The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1851-12-01

III Is SAID thnt Tile PRESIDENT VIII, III hio ines
sage, recommend the establishment of an agri-
cultural school in or near this city also, the es-
tablishmsnt Of bureau of statistics la connec-
| ton with the Department of the Interior. Both
Of these institutions are greatly needed. we
are behind all governments in regard to stats
tical information.
! | was surprised that the Southern men were
so generally opposed at the late session, to the
collection of statistics in taking the seventh
census. The results have been tiatterlng and
useful To the South but they thought 1T would
show the nakedness of their land.
La a country where agriculture is the employ
mept of three-fourths of the people, the govern
ment ought certainly to do something for the
promotion of agricultural SCIENCE for, though
reading and writing come by nature" il does
not appear that good farming does.
When Mr.. Il. ]. Walker shall be called upon
to explain the cause of the great mistake in his
estimate of the amount of agricultural products
to be expected from the United States this year
IA mistake of three hundred millipns--he had
better say that il was because the government
had founded no agricultural school! 1t would
be quite as good a reason as any that he could
give"
We suppose that it is not unlikely that the
President will recommend just such an estab-
lishment as the writer suggests, and as he and
other consolidationists have often advocated
They would have the powers of the government
constructively enlarged its arms extended to
every industrial pursuit in the States its rough
and unadapted hands laid upon even the finest
social relations and the theorizing sentiments
to be found in society moulded to foster and
support its own abuses and corruptions.
We have already built up under Executive
power, Department Of The Inferior" which,
with pretext for the general welfare is but
another centralizng organ for scrutinizing all
internal interests, general and special. The
motive, of course, being to enlist the popular in
luence of each interest, and by combined ma
jorities to confer upon the government the
power to bestow supposed special benefits. IL
is upon this aggregation of offices, hitherto APP
pertaining to other departments, now even more
heterogeneously combined, that it is proposed
to engraft an agricultural Bureau"-not un-
likely to be consummated by experimental plan
tatons and model farms, with overseers and
ploughmen general, under the nominal title of
professors"
The Statistical Bureau" is another graft on
this internal engine, to be composed, as we have
seen it somewhere stated, of the present census
corps of officials, after they shall have made
their report-if ever-on the last federal census.
Hitherto, the business Of aggregatiDg and re-
porting the census has been done in few
months, by about, on an average, dozen tenn
porary clerks. But the corps now employed
numbers nearly one hundred persons sufficient,
one would think, to have produced an accurate
report of their labors long before this. We
know that the excuse for the extraordinary force
and delay is the fact that the President, backed
by majority in Congress, has made the census,
for the last decade, pack horse for all sorts of
Legitimate statistics. And this brings us to
the main object we had in view in noticing the
extract we have made.
/ The writer repeats griegous expression of
his surprise that Southern men should have OPP
posed the purpose of those who finally enacted
this constructive power, since the results have
been so Aattering and useful to the South"
And he assumes that they were afraid that it
would show the nakedness of their land.
Now, we assert that this assumption is not war;
RANKED by any thing to be found in the opposi-
ton of Southern men to this extension of power.
They opposed it solely on the ground of its I'M
constitutionality or that it was not necessary or
wanted for any practical purpose of government
The stigma thus meanly and Rroundessly at
tempted to be cast upon Southern men, by q
writer who has been generally regarded as fair
in his observations, can only be accounted fol
in that pardonsble sensitiveness to any opposi-
ton to schemes tending to increase the pepua-
ton and value of property in the federal city, so
peculiar to many of its inhabitants. The last
thing they dream of is that any evil can result
E to this confederacy by a lavish expenditure OF
public money, even though it be not wanted for
purposes strictly constitutional.
The writer, who, by the way, is also the free
'rade correspondent of the Charleston Courier,
that government ought TO do something for
the promotion of agricultural science" We
3 would ask if all the other arts and sciences do
not as much need its promotive agency Ger.
tainly he cannot plead infancy and homage for
agriculture. We thought that the course for
charging the area of our federal powers would
tend to the establishment Of "by authority
law, and medical faculty, and professorships, be-
fore an agricultural one would be attempted
IT. however, the latter is thought the most
popular, the former may be most readily obtained
by giving it precedence.
i p. s. Since the remarks above were penned
we observe in the New York Herald PROPOSE.
ton for yet another Bureau, the Bureau Of
Printing!
eE" 1t is scarcely necessary for us to men,
ton the fact that Congress meets day.
The attenda CO is unusually large, and the
members elect merit praise for the prompt ude