ospect 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 o