after the first year, it is believed, will be amply sufficient to defray all expenses. Yet to meet contingencies that may occur, and to make up for any deficiency in the estimate, the committee think that an appropriation of $100,000, the surplus to be invested for the benefit of the institution, will insure usefulness and permanency to the school, and prove amply sufficient to meet all its wants. This sum, if equalized among the population of the State, would operate as a tax of about five cents to each inhabitant. The committee then go on to remark as follows: "Your committee have thus complied with the requisition of the society, in submitting the plan of an Agricultural School, and an estimate of the expense necessary to establish and put the same into successful and permanent operation. It only remains for them to state their opinion of its utility. "The agriculture of a country affords the best criterion of its prosperity. Whether we compare kingdoms, states, counties, districts, or farms, the condition of this branch of labor, which they severally exhibit, is a sure index, not only of the pecuniary, but of its moral condition. It is no less an axiom founded in truth, that agriculture prospers or languishes in proportion to the science and skill of the men who manage its labors. It is not the natural fertility of the soil, so much as the intelligence and industry of those who till it, which gives to husbandry its interests and its rewards. The man who devotes the energies of a highly cultivated mind, to the improvement of this primitive and all important branch of labor, is a public benefactor. Cincinnatus did more to immortalize his name, and to command our applause, by his love of rural labors, than by his military exploits. Washington, amid all the honors that irradiated his brow, sought his highest pleasures in the business and retirement of the farm. And it was the first remark of our present chief magistrate, to the writer, after introduction, that he would not forego the pleasures of the farm, for all the honors and emoluments that this nation could confer upon him. Education enables man to appreciate the wonderful provisions which God has made for his happiness in rural life, and imparts to him the ability of diffusing instruction and happiness to multitudes around him. "It should be the policy of government, therefore, which watches over the interest of all, to infuse into the labors of husbandry all the lights of science and knowledge to take care to expand and elevate the minds of those who are to give it efficiency and character, and to call forth skill and industry by proffered rewards. With us these considerations possess peculiar force. Our population and business are emphatically agricultural, and every aid which is extended to this class, benefits, indirectly, every portion of the community. Agriculture constitutes the fountains of the thousand rills, which swelling and traversing every part of the State, propel the spindle and the hammer of the artizan and the manufacturer, and finally, by their union, make up the mighty stream of commerce which unceasingly flows into the Atlantic. "That our agriculture is susceptible of improvement—that the products of its labors may be doubled, nay quadrupled, must be apparent to those who have compared our husbandry with that of some European countries, or who have contrasted, at home, the well cultivated district, or farm, with those which are badly managed. How is the desired amelioration to be effected? How can a better husbandry be so well promoted, as by teach ing it to our youth-by sowing our seed in the spring-time of life? Prejudice no where retains a stronger hold, than among farmers who have approached or passed the meridian of life. While some retain old practices, for want of confidence in their knowledge to guide them in better ones, others lack the first requisites to improvement a consciousness that their system is not the most useful; while not a few are influenced, in their hostility to public means of improvement, by the desire to keep things to their own level. If we would efficiently improve this great branch of business, and elevate its character, as well as the character of those who are engaged in its operations, we must do what universal experience has shown to be the only sure method:- we must lay our foundation in the rising generation - we must teach the young idea how to shoot — we must instruct the head to help the hands. Our physical and mental powers are twin sisters. They lighten each other's labor, and mutually impart a zest to each other's enjoyments. And as it is becoming common to introduce manual labor into literary schools, it is courteous that literature and science should requite civility, by associating with the inmates of schools of labor. 66 Agricultural Schools, although of modern date, have nevertheless been established in most of the states of Europe, and their utility has been fully demonstrated. Who has not heard of the school of Fellenberg, at Hofwyl, or of Von Thayer, at Moegelin - to which young men are sent from every part of Europe, and even from America? In France and Prussia, Agricultural Schools have been founded and maintained by the governments. If they are found to be beneficial, and worthy of governmental support, in countries where power is vested in the few, how much more salutary must they prove here where our institutions receive the impress of their character from the many, and where the perpetuity of these institutions depends emphatically upon the intelligence and virtue of the agricultural population. Despotism will never flourish in the American soil, but through the ignorance, and we may say consequent depravity, of its cultivators. "Your committee recall to recollection, with feelings of pride, the munificent benefactions of the legislature, to advance the literary character of our state; and the fact, that comparatively nothing has been done, legislatively, to improve our agriculture, which employs five-sixths of our population, can only be ascribed to the fact, that nothing has been asked for nothing thought of. Our public colleges and academies, for literary instruction, are numerous and respectable. They meet our eye in almost every village. But where are our public schools of labor? Where is the head taught to help the hands, in the business which creates wealth, and which is the grand source of individual and national prosperity and happiness? Our literary and professional schools have been reared up and sustained, by the expenditure of more than two millions of dollars from the public treasury, and they continue to share liberally in the public bounty. It will not, however, be denied, that the benefits which they dispense are altogether partial—that the rank and file of society, destined by heaven to become the conservators of civil liberty, are virtually denied a participation in the science and knowledge — in the means of improvement and of happiness, which they are calculated to dispense. Is it not a mandate of duty, then, as well as of expediency, that the benefits of public instruction should be more generally dispensed? We hazard not the fear of contradiction in assuming, that if a moiety of the public monies, which have been appropriated to literary schools, had been judiciously applied in rendering science subservient to the arts, and in diffusing the higher branches among the laboring classes, the public benefits from the appropriation would have been far greater than they are at the present day. How many hundreds may now be pointed out, of liberal education, who are mere cyphers in society, for want of the early habits of application and labor, which it is the object of the proposed school to form and to infix! And how many, for want of these habits, have been prematurely lost to their friends, and to a purpose of usefulness for which man seems wisely to have been created that of doing good to his fellows. "From a full conviction, that the interests of the state not only warrant, but require, an appropriation of public monies to this object, your committee beg leave to recommend to the consideration of the Society the following resolution: "Resolved, That a respectful memorial be presented to the Legislature, in behalf of this Society, and of the great interest which it represents, praying that suitable provision be made by law, for establishing a School of Agriculture, on the plan recommended in the preceding report; and that the cooperation, in this application, of societies and individuals, friendly to the object of the petition, be respectfully solicited." We learn with pleasure that several county societies in the state strongly expressed in recent resolutions, a determination to petition. the Legislature at their late session to make appropriations for an Agricultural Seminary. As another evidence of the interest which is taken in this subject in New York, provision was made by the executive committee of the Society to have lectures on the sciences, as connected with agriculture and practical husbandry, during the several days of their late session. It is highly creditable to this great and flourishing member of our confederacy, to give the impulse in this important work, and we hope her example will be speedily and successfully followed by every state in the Union. It is probable, however, that after the institution shall have been permanently established, it may be made nearly if not wholly a selfsupporting institution. By this we mean, that the avails of the pupils' labor may be made to defray the expenses of their board and tuition; and this too, without retarding their studies; and we think that the experiments already made in this country will bear us out in the conjecture. If not, however, we should say let a suitable sum be paid for tuition; for it is in our view miserable economy to encourage any more labor than will advance rather than retard the progress of the pupil, and to encourage those kinds of labor which will interfere with health, or will not even promote it in the highest possible degree. We are surprised, however, to find the products of the farm estimated at so low a rate, and board so much higher than has been found necessary in recent experiments. But the committee may have acted wisely in not raising public expectations too high; and we hope they will never sacrifice the main object of this noble - undertaking, — the improvement of their pupils, and their country, for the mere purpose of saving money. After the above report was received, a memorial was presented to the Legislature, praying for the establishment of a State Agricultural school. This memorial, together with the foregoing report was submitted to a select committee for consideration. The report of this committee, of which Mr Sudam was chairman, was highly favorable; and was accompanied by the form of a bill for carrying the plan into effect. The following are extracts from the report, which deserve the attention of every American legislator. "It it then unfair to ask, what has been done by the Legislature for a class of its citizens so numerous, virtuous, and meritorious? The stranger, when he sojourns in our land, and views all that has been done for the cause of science, for education in the higher branches of literature, for our common schools, for the reformation and punishment of crimes on a scale superior to any state in Europe, naturally inquires - Show me your agricultural school. You are essentially an agricultural people; a class of society who have aided so liberally to the institutions of your State must have received the constant and peculiar care of legislative protection and patronage, by forming their minds, their habits, and their tempers, to become the patrons of the noble monuments already erected, and which, while they shed lustre on your State, have placed her first among her sisters in the Union. "Shall we any longer be compelled to answer:- We have no such institution; we have provided an ample revenue for all but a complete course of practical instruction in agriculture. In almost every state in Europe, the attention of despotic government has been called nay, seriously and sedulously directed to the formation and endowment of schools of this description. There, it is admitted, the motive to a certain extent may be mercenary to provide food for taxation. Here it is a debt due from the State to a class which, before they asked for themselves, have contributed to all others. "It is not the intention of the committee to endow an institution to rear up and educate persons in the mere theory of husbandry. It is to combine practice with science; and if it should be said that this would be a school only for the children of the opulent, the unanswerable argument is, that it is the same in regard to our colleges, and must be so of necessity. Still the results of such an education, practised upon in all parts of the State, must and will lead to the most beneficial results. A good example is worth a world of mere speculation. "In a school of this kind, under competent managers, there may be concentrated the best models of practice in rural labor, known at home or abroad. Education (practical education) is nowhere calculated to diffuse a more benign influence in society, than when bestowed on the farmer. He neither claims nor can exercise a monopoly. "This school is intended to be purely agricultural. But in order to this, will be necessary to open a course of instruction, combined with labor, which your committee venture to say will be as interesting, and, to the state, as valuable, as that which may be acquired in any other seminary. The different qualities of soil, as fitted for the various products of the earth; the use of compost and manures, as applicable to soils; the seasons for planting, the rotation of crops, and the vast mass of practical information which enables man to transform a wilderness into a paradise, is worthy the pursuit of the richest as well as the humblest of the land. "The question is, shall we endow a school to which many would desire to send their children for the purpose of preparing them to depend in future life on one of the most certain, and therefore the most happy of human pursuits; combining in itself all the elements of constant, regular, and sagacious employment; and freed from all the cares and corroding recollections, present or past, of the pursuits of a political life. "Your committee propose to give them (farmers) a school to which resort may be had for the cultivation of the mind, and the improvement of the person; laying the foundation for future toils and pleasures, (for toils in agriculture are pleasures, when conducted to a successful result,) for future health and happiness, and preparing them to rear up a race fit to transmit to posterity the liberties we so highly cherish." ART. III. PRINCIPLES AND METHODS OF INTELLECTUAL IN- [Continued from Vol. II. p. 570.] OF YOUNG EDUCATION, rightly regarded, is not only an influence by which ideas are imparted, but an agency which calls them forth, in clear and palpable forms, from the sentient mind. It is a process of expression as well of impression. Its office consists, not in shedding light upon an opaque substance, but on the transparent mirror of the soul, whose surface reflects the images cast upon it, in their true proportions. It should address equally the intuitive and expressive powers of the child. The young mind is daily imbibing fresh material for thought. Susceptibility and instinct are supplying it with new ideas; and it endeavors to express these in oral and symbolic forms. It is this tendency of the mind that developes, at so early a period, the power of language; and renders the soul not only the receptacle of ideas, but imparts to it a moulding energy, by which these are impressed with the living forms of spirit. To supply the mind with fresh forms from without, and to keep it pure and transparent, that it may receive and reflect these forms in their true symmetry and beauty, would seem, therefore, to constitute the office of instruction; · to fit the soul for accurate correspondence with itself and with outward objects, the end of education. The following exercises, selected from the manuscripts of a little girl of nine years of age, are offered as specimens of original thought and expression as exhibitions of what may be accomplished, at an early age, in aid of cultivating the intuitive powers, by supplying the mind with materials, drawn chiefly from its own experience. The extent of idea manifested in them, as attained by one so young is a proof that subjects and efforts, usually regarded as without the apprehension of the juvenile mind, are not necessarily unintelligible, when presented in appropriate forms, and when the mind is interested in |