true, noble exceptions to this; yet it is also true that a large
proportion of their number have looked upon it with suspicion and
distrust, as though its purpose was to do them a wrong--to inflict upon
them an evil. They have not merely withheld from it their aid and
support, but their active influence has too often been exerted to its
disadvantage and prejudice. This is certainly wrong--very wrong!

Let us look a little into this matter. Is knowledge--a knowledge of
those sciences which are intimately connected with agriculture as an
art--of no value to the farmer? Is it necessary that he should be a dolt
in order to be fitted for his vocation? Will ignorance and bad husbandry
increase his crops or enable him to find a better market for his
products? Or, will his enjoyment, in his daily round of toil, be any
greater because unconscious that he is groping his way along in the
dark? No! For however that may have been in the past it is certainly not
the case now. And although "ignorance," as it is said, may be "bliss,"
yet in these days, at least, it must be a sort of negative bliss.

Ignorance is certainly not power; nor does it lead to wealth as a means
of comfortable support and enjoyment--which is the legitimate end of all
labor. Will _ignorance_ give respectability, or sweeten the toil of the
husbandman? Will it elevate his thoughts and desires to higher and
nobler aims, or inspire him to "look from nature up to nature's God?"
Will it lead him instead of a fixed stolid gaze upon the earth over
which he walks, to engage in the study of those great and omnipotent
laws which regulate all matter, and which so wonderfully, yet certainly
control both the animal and vegetable kingdoms? No! It will accomplish
none of these desirable ends, but the very reverse of them all.

This proposition is so self-evident to intelligent men, that to advance
it to such an audience as the one before me--except as the basis of an
argument--must be entirely superfluous. But what was the social position
of the farmers, let me ask--even in this highly favored country--fifty
or sixty years ago? Were they not then regarded as men without
knowledge--devoid almost of sensibilities--unfitted for anything except
the mere routine of daily labor and toil--and capable only of delving in
the soil day by day? And were they not then considered, even by
themselves as well as by others, as occupying the very lowest position
in the scale of society? Such w