llars more. These estimates of cost seem low, nor do
I find in this particular any special objection to the recommendation
made by the commissioners of the government; any other scheme is likely
to be quite as expensive in the end.

My chief objection is, that such a plan is not comprehensive enough, and
cannot, in a reasonable time, sensibly affect the average standard of
agricultural learning among us. The graduation of fifty students a year
would be equal to one in a thousand or fifteen hundred of the farmers of
the state; and in ten years there would not be one professionally
educated farmer in a hundred. We are not, of course, to overlook the
indirect influence of such a school, through its students annually sent
forth: the better modes of culture adopted by them would, to some
extent, be copied by others; nor are we to overlook the probability of a
prejudice against the institution and its graduates, growing out of the
republican ideas of equality prevailing among us. But the struggle
against mere prejudice would be an honorable struggle, if, in the hour
of victory, the college could claim to have reformed and elevated
materially the practices and ideas of the farmers of the country. I fear
that even victory under such circumstances would not be complete
success. An institution established in New England must look to the
existing peculiarities of our country, rather than venture at once upon
the adoption of schemes that may have been successful elsewhere. Here
every farmer is a laborer himself, employing usually from one to three
hands, and they are often persons who look to the purchase and
cultivation of a farm on their own account; while in England the master
farmer is an overseer rather than a laborer. The number of men in Europe
who own land or work it on their own account is small; the number of
laborers whose labors are directed by the proprietors and farmers is
quite large. Under these circumstances, if the few are educated, the
work will go successfully on; while here, our agricultural education
ought to reach the great body of those who labor upon the land. Will a
college in each state answer the demand for agricultural education now
existing? Is it safe in any country, or in any profession or pursuit, to
educate a few, and leave the majority to the indirect influence of the
culture thus bestowed? And is it philosophical, in this country, where
there is a degree of personal and professional freedom such a