science the hardy sons of the plough. To these incitements were added
the powerful fascinations of great cities. These circumstances have long
since produced an overcharge in the class of competitors for learned
occupation, and great distress among the supernumerary candidates; and
the more, as their habits of life have disqualified them for re-entering
into the laborious class. The evil cannot be suddenly, nor perhaps ever
entirely cured: nor should I presume to say by what means it may be
cured. Doubtless there are many engines which the nation might bring to
bear on this object. Public opinion and public encouragement are among
these. The class principally defective is that of agriculture. It is
the first in utility, and ought to be the first in respect. The same
artificial means which have been used to produce a competition in
learning, may be equally successful in restoring agriculture to its
primary dignity in the eyes of men. It is a science of the very first
order. It counts among its handmaids the most respectable sciences,
such as Chemistry, Natural Philosophy, Mechanics, Mathematics
generally, Natural History, Botany. In every College and University, a
professorship of agriculture, and the class of its students, might be
honored as the first. Young men closing their academical education with
this, as the crown of all other sciences, fascinated with its solid
charms, and at a time when they are to choose an occupation, instead of
crowding the other classes, would return to the farms of their fathers,
their own, or those of others, and replenish and invigorate a calling,
now languishing under contempt and oppression. The charitable schools,
instead of storing their pupils with a lore which the present state of
society does not call for, converted into schools of agriculture, might
restore them to that branch, qualified to enrich and honor themselves,
and to increase the productions of the nation instead of consuming them.
A gradual abolition of the useless offices, so much accumulated in all
governments, might close this drain also from the labors of the field,