Year: 1877




very tolerable schools already exist, and
that the book farmer will after all have to
do rs other book men do and get his study
mainly outside of schools of whatever
name. And in the first place it should be
remembered that boys are sons of Adam
to be educated and not, rs Mr.. Gradgrind
and other eminent school authorities con-
slider them, mere little pitchers TO be filed
with facts. Hence it becomes true that
higher schools always ought to be and
generally are more valuable for things
outside the course of study than for the
studies themselves. The Vermont farm
boy coming, with good mind and body,
from comparatively secluded life, is
likely to lie especially profted by this in
cidental association and general discipline
of school life, and it becomes a question
whether-the object being to acquaint him
with the affairs of this world with u view
to his own business in lle-any possible
course Of study on the agricultural college
idea can equal the advantages offered by
great schools in large towns, with pupils
from the four quarters of the earth, rs they
now stand, 1t is urged that good part
Of the study in Il classical course is utterly
wasted if the student becomes a farmer,
but that is never altogether true as u man
knows nothing quite in vain, while some
thing in the same direction is true in my
conceivable case. OF course the argument
has its truth and is entitled to its weight
in the premises, but that weight will be
found upon close examination 4 good deal
less than would ut first appear. Useless
knowledge is rare thing, and while it
might not be wise for the buyer and seller
Of Hamburg edgings to give extended
study to Tockahoopoo mythology, as n
matter Of practical economy, it might,
nevertheless, fall out that John Tompkins,
mere hedger and ditcher, should find oc-
casion for a knowledge Of Sansllrit, and |
find no difficulty IN imagining circumstan-
ces under which Farmer Brown could do
worse than to spend little time with
Greek roots.


But, dropping all these matters andassum-
ing the agricultural college to be among
the things necessary to have, there comes
the rather important question Of ways and
means, for there is no use in talking about
Il great institution of learning conducted
on any cheap jack principle. A university
that is good for anything will require, first
of all the dross Of this world, and great
deal of it, and those who wish to have one
established will have to 90 down into their
breeches pockets pretty deep, AMI pretty
often, and for pretty long time Yer
mont has already a sufficient number Of
starving colleges" and The like which
ought to be mercfully throttled And
finally, surprising it to be all done and =
Vermont agricultural college in full opera
ton giving the very best opportunities
within its purpose to be had for money to
classes of several hundred Vermont boys,
I should certainly expect that college to
be the very best place under the sun for
Boston man to send his city bred son to,
preparatory for city life,


While upon the subject of agricultural
learning it may be we'll enough to call to
mind the advance that has in fact been
made in the literary education Of our farm
ers within recent years without the aid of
special educational machinery. Reading
and writing no doubt come by nature to
all true born Yankees, and the farmers al
ways had those requirements at command,
but in the privation and poverty incident
to the settling Of Il country such rs this
was those literary arts could be- but little
practiced. while until within our own
days not only were such things rs agricul-
turaI books and newspaper, absolutely un-
known, but here was not Il scrap Of agri.
cultural literature within reach except u
few brief items in the yearly almanac di-
recting the farmer in what phases Of the
moon to plant his beans and kill his pigs.
To-day, farmers having something more
than a common school education are by
no means uncommon, and college bred
men not unknown, while we are coutinu-
ally seeing published letters of practical
nature from actual tillers Of the soil show
ing habits Of close observing and reason
ing such rs were but yesterday confined 10
purely scientific men, and y handful of lhe
genuine horny handed " are now going
about the state as Board of Agriculture
And we have innumerable books and some
dozens Of able and elaborate periodicals
devoted exclusively to farm interests, with
all newspapers of II general charac er Civ
ing literally Of their space to the subject,
so that the lierature Of agriculture greatly
exceeds in magnitude that OF any other
] bNpCdLlplly ttll'l - lLotll tAOCCNtN Wy Wi y
few departments in the whole world Of
letters. The books seem to flourish less
vigorously than the newspapers, and the
public libraries have never been u popular
success, the reason for which is in part, Nc
doubt, he fact that book writer's are no
ordinarily practical mem but it must alsC
be said that the constantly varying circum


stances under which farmers work pu
anything like Il standard text book of
general nature nearly out of the question


Besides this, the benefcent newspape


gives pretty much everything extant in tn,
line of practical suggestion, in cheap an,
convenient form. PETER


Pomfret, Vt, Feb 8, 1877.


/ FRAGMENTS OF LIvEs.-Ihese " "frag


menis Of lives, how they strew our dai


ly path on every side Not house Il,


we enter not Il company do we mix with


but we more than guess-1Ge knOC-tha


these our friends, men and women, vii,