Vermont farmer. [volume] (Newport, Orleans County, Vt.) 1870-1877, 1872-12-20
AGRICULTURAL CoLLEGES---SEN-
AToR MoRRILLS SPEECH.

half Of better education for the rising gen.
Grafton Of farmers Firmly convinced that
in the present age of the world no class, no
matter how large or even how rich, can ever
advance its prospects and defend its rights
against the natural oucroachment Of other
classes, without being armed with all the
modern weapons Of knowledge and science,
we shall never cease to urge upon the read
ers of the VERMONT FARMER the vital impor-
lance Of maintaining their free schools in the
highest condition of vigor and effectiveness.
The farmers Of Vermont are really more in
terested than any other class in the state in
popular education. BY their great majority
IF numbers they are, indeed, themselves,
,nE PEOPLE, yet as the majority they can
never exercise their prerogative Of rule, nor
ven prevent themselves from falling under
tie dominion Of other classes, no matter in
h,w small a numerical minority, if they
dis egard the fact that knowledge is
power" An educated class though but
small minority, will always find means, ell
ther directly or indirectly, to control and
grow rich cut of majority, no matter how
large, Of uneducated or poorly educated peo-
pie.
But NJ only does the security of our po-
litical AMI social rights depend upon our
maintenance and advancement Of the stand
ard Of popular education; the pecuniary prof
1t of our business, the cultivation Of the soil,
depends upon the existence among us of an
average amount Of technical knowledge, Sci
cntifc as well as practical. Science is being
successfully applied to agriculture in all the
leading nations of the world. The farmers
Of Europe seize eagerly upon almost every
new scientific fact, and in some way apply
it proftably to practice This is no mere
notion. The agreeable production Of land
has doubled in many parts Of Europe during
the last fifty years, and all this increase is
due to the application Of facts and the appre.
citation of laws made known by scientific in
vestigatiOn. An equal gain, due to the same
cause, has been made in the profits derived
from their domestic animals.
Now the farmers of America and espe
cally the farmers Of New England, come into
direct rivalry with these scientific farmers o.
Europe in the business of supplying the grea
manufacturing hives of the world with theil
necessary food. The improvements Of sci
cnce applied to commerce have brought
Europe ard America so close together tha
1t may truly be said the Atlantic Ocean haI
been abolished, since freights may be trans
ported over it cheaper than they can b.
brought from the Mississippi valley to tn,
coast. Agriculturally and commercially thu
two .ontinents are fast becoming one, and i
will ,e absolutely impossible for American
larl,rls, uninstructed III the science of agri
cultu ., to compete, with any hope of profit
with tie science aided agriculture of Europe
1t will tarve US out and drive us from tn
business, and our farms will tall into tn
hands of European emigrants in consequence
Of the simple want Of ability on our part t
get living along side Of their more efficen
methods of husbandry.
The necessity of the call and the urgenc
OF our situation is well understood by thos
whose position enables them to look over tn
whole field of human industry, and note til
movements that are taking place from yea
to year. As the Paris Exposition iustl
alarmed the manufacturers of England b
exhibiting the rapid rate at which their col
tincntal uelghbors were gaining upon an
even surprising them, so does every INTEL
gent glance thrown by American statesme
upon the fields, hocks and herds Of the n;
tons that have adopted scientific system {
farming alarm them for the future Of Amer
can agriculture. They see that we cann'
afford to despise science. Those among !
who despise it are in the position Of the col
ceited Frenchmen who thought they coul
stand against and overthrow the scientfcal
armed and trained armies of that highly e.
ucatcd Prussan nation, which is at this m
ment demonstrating, not in arms alone, br
IN every field Of human effort, the immcn
superiority conferred upon a people by Il
general diffusion of scientific knowled!
among the masses
We are proud that it has been a chose
and long honored representative Of the ia
L Al
national Senate,-who seems earliest al
most fully to have eomprehended our stu
ton in this regarl Always the champ,
of the rights and interests of American
dustry, Justin S. Morrill, has been ev
more true to his class than that class has be
to itself. lie has been IN advance Of i
time, yet so far behind were We, falling tn
we needed man so advanced to arouse us
our true position. The natural productiy
ness of a virgin soil has generated in our a
riculture careless disregard of the first pri
cipes of the art. That virgin fertility h
disappeared over the larger part of our CT
tivated area and will soon be exhausted
every part of the continent. We have be
brought down, literally, to the "hard pan
and we have got to do something, witho
really having the right tools to do it with.
Mr. Morrill, has endeavored to provide
the erection, all over the country, of fact
res for the production Of the necessary to
to break up our "hard pan" and make
pro6tably productive. These factories {
called agricultural Colleges" and it v
his original intent that every State shot
have one such, amply endowed. Under
terms of the original act, giving land