Land we love, a monthly magazine devoted to literature, military history, and agriculture.

              THE LAND WE LOVE.
No. I. MAY, 1866. Vol. I.
EDUCATION.
The Latin poet has beautifully said
that they who change their sky db
. not change their minds. The emi-grant
from his natal soil carries with
him his old opinions, his old senti-ments,
and his old habits. In select-ing
a place for his residence in the
land of his adoption, he seeks some
hill or vale which resembles the spot
on which stands the dear old home-stead
far away. The new edifice is
made as near alike as may be to the
paternal building. His garden, his
vineyard, his orchard, his grounds
are fashioned after the models so
fondly cherished in his memory.
His style of living, his mode of
thought, his habits, his manners, his
passions, and his prejudices will all
be unchanged. The accents that first
struck his childish ear will still be
heard with delight, and most joyful-ly
will he meet some ^countryman
from that loved land, with whjom he
may converse in his sacred native
tongue. And still more grateful will
it be to him to find a colony of his
own people, where familiar tones will
ever greet him, and where the wor-ship
and customs of his fathers will
ever be preserved. And in fact it is
just because men do not change their
minds with their sky that these col-onies
so frequently dot the surface
of this mighty Republic. To us
VOL I.
—
NO I.
there is something beautiful in this
love for home and home associations,
this clinging to the language, the re-ligion,
and the customs transmitted
from generation to generation ; and
we never pass such a settlement
from the Old "World without the feel-ing
that they who venerate the tra-ditions
of the past -v^ill respect the
laws of the present, and that they
whose hearts go out toward those of
their own blood and tongue are the
better prepared thereby to exercise
benevolence toward all mankind.
He who does not love his own fam-ily
better than the whole of the rest
of the world, who does not love his
own land better than all the coun-tries
on earth, is so far from being a
Christian and patriot, that he is a
monster utterly unworthy of trust
and confidence. The Apostle Paul
pronounces him to be worse than
an infidel. So strong was sectional
love in the great apostle himself that
he could wish himself accursed from
Christ for the sake of his brethren,
his kinsmen according to the flesh.
Moses, the heaven-appointed leader
of Israel, who talked with God face
to face, as a man talketh with his
friend, went even beyond Paul in his
devotion to his people, and did ac-tually
offer the request which Paul
expressed his willingness to offer:
1
Education. [May,
" Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their
sin ; and if not, blot me, I pray thee,
out of thy book, which thou hast
written."
Among the sweet psalms of David,
the man after God's own heart, and
constituting a part of the sacred can-on
of Scripture, is the touching la-ment
of the captive at Babylon as
the representative of the true-hearted
Israelite, invoking a fearful curse
upon himself if ever found wanting
in love to his native land. " If I for-get
thee, Jerusalem, let my right
hand forget her cunning. If I do
not remember thee, let my tongue
cleave to the roof of my mouth ; if
I prefer not Jerusalem above my
chief joy." Jeremiah, the holy pro-phet
who was sanctified ere he was
born, represents himself as weeping
day and night for the miseries of his
people. Nehemiah, while a member
of the household of the king of
Babylon, and occupying toward him
the confidential relation of cup-bear-er,
had no relish for the enjoyments
of that most luxurious city when
he heard the sad news from his na-tive
land. So profound was his grief
that the imperious monarch noticed
it, and was offended. " Wherefore,
the king said unto me. Why is thy
countenance sad, seeing thou art not
sick ? this is nothing else but sorrow
of heart. Then I was very sore
afraid, and said unto the king, Let
the king live forever: why should
not my countenance be sad when the
city, the place of my fathers' sepul-chres
lieth waste, and the gates there-of
are consumed by fire ?"
With all these holy men of old,
love to their own nation was a
part of their religion, nor did they
understand that modern philanthro-py
which consists in going to the
uttermost parts of the earth to seek
objects of its beneficence, while
squalor, ignorance, sin and misery
are all around it at home. One of
this school, whose name is a house-hold
word throughout the civilized
world, visited every abode of wretch-edness
in Europe, but left his own
son to become a maniac through
neglect and cruelty. On the con-trary,
our Saviour spent his energies
and his activities in Judea and Gali-lee.
His life of labor, privation, and
suffering passed away among his own
people. His last instructions to his
disciples were to begin their ministry
at Jerusalem, the capital of his na-tive
country. His example hallows
the sweet charities which begin at
home, and sheds a fragrance around
that holy feeling which burns in the
bosom of the patriot for the land we
love.
But we of the South, however
much we may revere our ancestors
and their time-honored usages, and
though the same sky be over our
heads which looked down upon
theirs, must yet of necessity change
our minds upon many subjects, else
our very name and nation will be
taken away. Our system of labor
has been abolished. Our currency de-stroyed
and our whole social organ-ization
has been overturned. Thou-sands
of elegant mansions, the prince-ly
seats of luxury and refinement,
where a magnificent hospitality was
dispensed with a lordly hand, are
now but heaps of rubbish and ashes.
Thousands of acres, which once
groaned under the weight of the
golden harvest, are now waste and
desolate places—the habitation, it
may be, of reptiles and wild beasts.
Hundreds of the sanctuaries of the
Most High, where men were wont to
go up to take sweet counsel together,
are now marked by blackened walls
or piles of rains. " Our holy and
beautiful house, where our fathers
praised thee, is burned up with fire
;
and all our pleasant things are laid
waste. . . . The new wine mourn-eth,
the vine languisheth, all the
merry-hearted do sigh. The mirth
of tabrets ceaseth, the noise of them
that rejoice endeth, the joy of the
harp ceaseth. Our country is deso-late,
our cities are burned with fire
;
and the daughter of Zion is left as a
cottage in a vineyard, as a lodge in a
garden of cucumbers, as a besieged
city." A change has come over us
mightier far than that made by the
1866.] Education.
poor emigrant, who changes his sky,
and we must make our minds corre-spond
to the new state of things.
First of all, we must make a total
radical change in our system of
education. We must abandon the
aesthetic and the ornamental for
the practical and the useful. We
need practical farmers, miners, ma-chinists,
engineers, manufacturers,
navigators, blacksmiths, carpenters,
etc., etc., to develop the immense re-sources
of our country, which war
has not been able to destroy. Agri-culture
must be studied as a science,
with all its coordinate branches —
chemistry, geology, mineralogy, me-teorology.
Mining must next claim
our attention, as our country is rich
ni iron, copper, gold, lead, zinc,
manganese, lime, gypsum, salt, mar-ble,
etc., etc. These two (farming
and mining) must chiefly for a while
occupy the time and the energies of
our people. In these the great bulk
of our inland population will seek em-ployment
and subsistence. To labor
successfully they must labor intelli-gently,
and this can only i)e accom-plished
by educational training for
the work. Next, in order to labor
economically and profitably, we must
have our engines, our tools, our im-plements
of every description made
upon our own soil ; and this again
requires skillful and well-instructed
machinists. We must have our own
foundries and workshops, and in
tliem no ignorant and bungling work-men
must be found. The buildings
needed, that they may have the re-quisite
suitableness and adaptability
to the end in view, must be planned
by one who has made architecture*
his study, and rnust be erected by •
those familiar with carpentry as an
art.
Nature has lavished upon us her
most munificent bounties, and has
invited us by her voice from a thou-sand
water-falls to turn our attention
to manufacturing. Steam-power can
not compete with water-power, on
account of the superior cheapness of
the latter, and our rivers and lesser
streams have unsurpassed and un-surpassable
sites for mills and fac-tories
of every kind. The James,
the Tennessee, the Yadkin, Cape
Fear, Catawba, Chattahoochee, and
hundreds of others have as great ad-vantages
in these respects as any
water-courses in the world. While,
too, our streams can be used through-out
the entire year, those of the
North are locked up with ice for
months. Spite of this immense
drawback, and the additional im-pediment
of having to transport the
raw material from one to two thou-sand
miles, the persistent, pertina-cious,
persevering energy of the
North has erected a hundred cotton
factories where we have but one.
The fruitfulness of our soil should,
and ordinarily does, render food
cheap and abundant. The mildness
of our climate, too, saves the South-ern
operative one half at least of the
expense which his Northern compet-itor
has to incur for fuel and wool-ens.
With the fourfold advantage of
streams always open, of the raw ma-terial
at our doors, of abundance of
food, and of smaller expenditures in
living, we ought to excel the North
in this branch of industry ; and we
will be utterly inexcusable if we do
not. The wool of Ohio, New-York,
Vermont, and New-Hampshire ought
rather to be sent here to be worked
up than the cotton of Georgia, Ala-bama,
and Mississippi to be sent
there. The facilities for manufactur-ing
are all in our favor; and it is
owing to our own inattention and
neglect that we are so immeasurably
behind. This inattention is owing
to three principal causes : 1st. It
was thought to be, and probably,
under the old system, was, more pro-fitable
to produce nothing but the
great staples of the South, and to
supply all our wants from abroad.
2d. On the great plantations of the
South labor was in excess, and hence
our thoughts were not turned to-ward
those labor-saving and labojr-performing
machines which econo-mize
and multiply human eflfort. The
use of machinery and the study of the
mechanic arts were, as a natural con-
Education. [May,
sequence, ignored and unheeded. 3d.
The general prosperity of the South
exempted a large class, and that the
most intelligent, from the necessity
of personal exertion to gain a sub-sistence.
Hence, the ingenuity in
mechanical contrivance which want
engenders was not developed among
our people. The privileged class,
not having to turn their thoughts
into the thousand avenues by which
wealth is sought and gained, did not
learn to prize it as a chief good.
Ambition, Avhich is natural to all
mankind, not being directed in them
to the acquisition of riches, found a
more congenial arena for its exercise
in the contest for political power.
Hence those branches of learning
which were calculated to fit the stu-dent
for successful championship on
the hustings and in the forum were
assiduously cultivated, to the almost
total neglect of all others. The dead
languages, the English classics, polit-ical
economy, rhetoric, elocution, law,
etc., engrossed the time and the en-ergies
of the Southern youth. Prob-ably
no people on the globe ever
prized so highly a knowledge of the
ancient classics as did the planters
of the Southern Atlantic States of
the old thirteen. In their estima-tion,
not to possess this knowledge
was not merely proof of want of
scholarship — it was an absolute de-monstration
of the want of gentle-manly
breeding. The influence of
such opinions upon the colleges of
the South will be seen by a glance at
the curricnlum of any one of them.
Science is thrust completely into the
background, and mathematics, the
essential pre-requisite to its mastery,
is treated with a neglect amounting
almost to contempt. Herschel said
of the Calculus, that Newton had in-vented
a new language, in which men
of science could think. This diffi-cult
study is disposed of in at least
three of our Southern universities
in a few lectures. Is this a less sham
upon the public than the quack ad-vertisement
of "French taught in
three lessons"? But it would be
unjust to these colleges to hold them
responsible for their low order of
mathematical instruction. The great
law of demand and supply is appli-cable
to them as to every thing else.
The Indian preacher, when told that
his salary of twenty-five dollars a
year was "confounded poor pay," re-plied,
"confounded poor preach."
When the demand is for an inferior
article, of course the inferior article
is furnished. The attention of the
writer of this was first called to the
difference between the training North
and South, when he went to a North-ern
institution to receive his own ed-ucation.
The young men froin the
former section were well drilled in
arithmetic and the rudiments of alge-bra
and geometry, but knew little
of Latin or Greek. It was precisely
the reverse with the young men from
the latter section. And this differ-ence
in the two systems of education
is owing to the fact, as we will see,
that the North sought wealth and
the South political preeminence as
the chief end of human exertion.
The celebrated Dr. Channing, of Bos-ton,
has given this eloquent analysis
of the characteristics of the two sec-tions
:
" The South has within itself elements
of political power more efficient than
ours. The South has abler politicians,
and almost necessarily, because its most
opulent class make politics the business of
life. ... At the North politics occu-py
a second place in men's minds. Even
in what we call seasons of public excite-ment
the people think more of private
business than of public affairs. We think
more of property than of political power
;
this indeed is the natural result of free
institutions. Under these, political pow-er
is not suffered to accumulate in a few
hands, but is distributed in minute por-tions
; and even when thus limited it is
not permitted to endure, but passes in
quick rotation from man to man. Of
consequence, it is an inferior good to
property. Every wise man among us
looks on property as a more sure and last-ing
possession to himself and family, as
conferring more ability to do good, to
gratify generous and refined tastes, than
the possession of political power. In the
South, an unnatural state of things turns
1866.] Education.
men's thoughts to political ascendency.
But in the Free States men think little
of it. Property is the good for wliicli
they toil perseveringly day and night.
Even the political partisan among us has
an eye to property^ and seeks office as the
best, perhaps only way of subsistence."—
Channing''s Duty of tlie Free States, Part
ii. pp. 71, Y2.
The italics in the forgoing extract
are our own. If this publication
were a recent one, and the author did
not hail from a State preeminently
union and hostile to rebels, we would
be disposed to accuse him of down-right
disloyalty. The broad assertion
that the people of the Free States
toil perserveringly for property day
and night as the chief good, and that
their public men seek office as the
best, perhaps only way of subsist-ence,
seems to savor of treason and
rebellion. Nor do we believe that
he clearly perceived the cause of the
distinction which certainly did exist
between the two sections. The sim-ple
reason is this : " The unnatural
state of things," spoken of by the
writer, that is, the system of slavery,
produced a privileged class at the
South relieved of the necessity of
scrambling for a livelihood. It sur-rounded
these favored persons with
all that heart could desire of comfort
and elegance, and permitted them to
turn their ambitious aims toward po-litical
power. They looked forward
to the time when they would take
their places in the councils of the
nation with almost as much confi-dence
as did the nobility of England
to the time when they would take
their seats in Parliament. The mem-tal
culture and the educational train-
^
ing of both Southerner and English-man
were to fit thfem for the position
of honor and usefulness. There be-ing
no servile race at the North, the
struggle for property became more
general there than with us ; and to
achieve superior success in obtaining
it became naturally the object of am-bition.
Not one in a hundred of
those who wearily labored day and
night to acquire riches was actuated
by those benevolent aims which the
writer so eloquently describes. The
successful man of business, on his
entrance into life, found himself sur-rounded
by a multitude, pushing,
hurrying and scrambling for money
as a means of subsistence. The nat-ural
desire for preeminence prompted
him to attempt to excel in the pur-suits
in which all were engaged.
His superior tact, energy, and ad-dress
placed him at length in the
front rank. Had he been born on a
rice or cotton plantation with the
same talents and ambition, he would
have sought distinction in public life,
just because his equals in society
were elevated above the necessity of
a struggle for a maintenance ; and
therefore in political triumphs alone
could his love of superiority find its
exercise. This seems to us the nat-ural
solution of the whole matter.
But however this may be. Dr. Chan-ning
was unquestionably right in this,
that the statesmen of the country
have belonged chiefly to the South.
Upon them have been lavished chiefly
the highest honors of the Republic.
Since the first meeting of Congress
under the Constitution in the city of
New-York, on the 4th of March,
1789, there have been seventeen Pres-idents
of the United States, includ-ing
the three Vice-Presidents, Tyler,
Fillmore, and Johnson, who succeed-ed
to office upon the deaths of their
respective chiefs. Of these seven-teen,
eleven have been of Southern
birth, namely, Washington, Jeffer-son,
Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Har-rison,
Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Lincoln,
and Johnson. A single Southern
State, Virginia, has been the birth-place
of seven of them—Washington,
Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Harri-son,
Tyler, and Taylor. Of the six
Northern Presidents, J. Q. Adams
was not the choice of the people
;
the election was thrown into the
House of Representatives, and he
was chosen by a coalition of parties.
Mr. Fillmore became President upon
the death of General Taylor. So
that in fact only four men of North-ern
birth, John Adams, Van Buren,
Pierce, and Buchanan, w"ere elected
Education. [May,
by the people. And Mr. Van Buren
was made President, it is well known,
through the influence of his prede-cessor,
a Southern man ; and he, too,
was supported as the "Northern man
with Southern principles." On the
other hand, excluding Messrs. Tyler
and Johnson, nine of our Presidents
have been elected by the free votes
of the American people. Moreover,
during fifty-four years of the seventy-seven
of national existence, a South-ern-
born man has held the helm of
government. More than two thirds
of the life of the nation has Tjeen
spent under the administration of
Southern men. (See Sumner on the
Barbarism of Slavery.) Again, so
emphatically have all sections of this
mighty Republic indorsed the exec-utive
acts and foreign and domestic
policy of the Southern Presidents,
that every one of them who has per-mitted
himself to be a candidate a
second time for office has been re-elected,
while not a single President
of Northern birth has served two
terms. Washington was reelected ;
Jefferson was reelected ; Madison was
reelected ; Monroe was reelected
;
Jackson was reelected; Lincoln was
reelected. Of the other five South-ern
Presidents, two, Harrison and
Taylor, died during their incumben-cy
; two, Tyler and Polk, were not
candidates for reelection, and Mr.
Johnson is still President. Mr. Ty-ler
was personally unpopular, and
certainly could not have been reelect-ed
; but his general policy was in-dorsed
by the people, as shown by
the election of his successor, who,
like himself, was an annexationist
and an anti-tariflf man. Messrs. Har-rison
and Taylor died in the full glow
of their popularity. The constitu-ents
of the Soutliern Presidents have
shoion an approbation of their 2^oliey
never before accorded in history by
subjects to a line of sovereigns. (See
Sumner on the Barbarism of Slave-ry.)
Let us look next at the verdict
of the people upon the administra-tions
of the Presidents of Northern
birth. This has been adverse in
every single instance except one, as
shown not merely by the declination
to reelect them but also by repudi-ating
their policy, and selecting as
their successors men whose political
opinions were just the opposite of
their own, Washington left as his
successor a man who differed with
him so little upon the great questions
of the day as not to deem it neces-sary
to supersede Washington's cab-inet
by one of his own—an exam-ple,
by the way, of magnanimity as
rare as it is beautiful. But John
Adams, a Federalist, was himself suc-ceeded
by Thomas Jefferson, a Re-publican.
John Quincy Adams, a
Whig, was succeeded by Andrew
Jackson, a Democrat. Van Buren,
a Democrat, was beaten for reelection
by Harrison, a Whig, and the vote
by which he was rejected indicated,
on the part of the American people,
almost a contemptuous disrespect
of his administration. Their pro-nouncement
was still more decisive
when this "Northern man with South-ern
principles " came out once more
as a candidate for reelection and the
chosen champion of Abolitionism.
And lastly Buchanan, a Democrat,
was succeeded by Lincoln, a Repub-lican.
Of all the Presidents of North-ern
birth, Franklin Pierce alone has
had as his successor a man of his
own school of politics. His great
purity and integrity of character
won, not merely for himself, but for
his party, the confidence of his coun-trymen.
We admired him in Mexi-co
for the kindness and courtesy
with which he treated the officers of
the old army over whose heads he,
a civilian, had been placed. We ad-mired
him for resigning, and telling
the President frankly that the pref-erence
given to civilians over vete-ran
and meritorious officers was a
cruel injustice. We admired him
for the ability and impartiality with
which he presided over the destinies
of the nation, and during the la-st
five years our admiration has grown
into love and veneration. History
has but five or six names of men who
were unmoved when a whirlwind of
passion and excitement swept by;
1866.] Education.
of few, who, when their friends and
neighbors rushed wildly by, did not
join in the throng and add to their
frenzy. But history will add an-other
name to the list of those sub-lime
few whose memories will never
perish. *
Now it is very remarkable that
while the administration of Franklin
Pierce is the only one among all those
of Northern-born Presidents which
has not been repudiated by the peo-ple
and succeeded by another based
upon a different system of govern-ment,
only one Southern President
(James Monroe) has been succeeded
by a man of a different school of pol-itics.
Washington, after serving two
terms, was followed by John Adams,
who agreed with him on all the great
questions of the day. Jefferson,
after his second term of oflSce had
expired, yielded the Presidential chair
to James Madison, who was as strong
a believer in the doctrine of State
rights as he himself. James Madi-son,
after his second term, gave way
to James Monroe, a man of the same
political faith. A coalition of parties,
as we have seen, prevented Monroe
from being succeeded by one who
agreed with him on points of do-mestic
and foreign policy. But this
excited the utmost indignation
throughout the entire country, and
the people rose in their might at
their next election, and bore in tri-umph
to the White House their fa-vorite
hero, Andrew Jackson. He
(Jackson) served his eight years, and
then was followed by a Democrat of
his own selection. Tyler, an anti-tariflf
man and an annexationist, was
followed by Polk, who carried out
the policy of his predecessor. Polk,
a Democrat, was followed by Pierce,'
a Democrat. Finally, Lincoln, a Re-publican,
after being twice elected,
has been succeeded by Johnson, a
Republican.
The case of James Monroe does
not form an exception to the wonder-ful
indorsement of the ofl&cial acts
of Southern-born Presidents by the
great majority of the American peo-ple.
He was twice elected, and the
people believed, whether right or
wrong in that opinion, that they had
been cheated in the choice of his suc-cessor.
And at the next election
they chose a man of the same school
of politics with Mr. Monroe. We as-sert
then that while Franklin Pierce
alone of all the Northern Presidents
has been sustained by the American
people, the administration of every
single Southern President has re-ceived
the emphatic " well done"
from the mouths of those who elect-ed
them. (See Sumner on the Bar-barism
of Slavery.) We despise
toadyism, and will not, therefore,
pay that tribute to the ruling Chief
Magistrate which our feelings prompt
us to pay. But it is simple truth,
and no flattery, to say that if Wash-ington
has excited the admiration of
all mankind by rejecting a crown of
doubtful honor and doubtful dura-tion,
what will be thought in after
years of him who has scornfully de-clined
real, substantial power, com-pared
with which that of the Auto-crat
of Russia is as the small dust in
the balance ?
It is no objection to the views pre-sented
above that some of the South-ern
Presidents did not receive colle-giate
training, and that one of them
(Mr. Lincoln) was elected from the
North and by the North. They were
all born among a people with whom
political economy, statesmanship, and
the science of government were
household words. The mind of ev-ery
one of them thus received its
first bias. Their aspirations were
thus first turned toward political
honors. They were thus taught in
eai'ly life to prize the civic crown
more than heaps of gold and silver,
the laurel wreath more than stately
houses and broad acres ; and a
change of sky brought with it no
change of mind. Would Mr. Lin-coln,
amidst every discouragement,
have carried out his policy of sup-pressing
the rebellion with such in-flexible
obstinacy had he not been
born among a people with whom po-litical
failure brought infinitely more
disgrace fhan failure in business ? If
8 Education, [May,
Mr. Davis had been born under other
skies and other influences, would he
have cking to the last with such des-perate
tenacity to the idea of South-ern
independence
—
" Among the hopeless, hopeful only he" ?
Who can fail to see in their por-traits
the striking resemblance be-tween
conqueror and conquered ?
Both were from the same section of
the same State, and if not kindred in
blood, as alleged by some, at least
wonderfully alike in firmness of will
and tenacity of purpose. The North
has paid almost idolatrous honors to
the memory of Mr. Lincoln. They
have called him " the second "Wash-ington,
who saved the life of the na-tion
to which "Washington gave be-ing."
It can not be unkind to re-mind
these admirers that the one
was a son of Virginia, and the other
a son of Kentucky, the daughter of
Virginia.
Another curious instance of that
political ascendency of which Dr.
Channing speaks, is shown in this,
that every Northern President has
had associated with him as Vice-
President a man of Southern birth.
John Adams had as his associate
Thomas Jefferson ; J. Q. Adams, J.
C. Calhoun; Martin Van Buren, R.
M. Johnson ; Franklin Pierce, Wil-liam
R. King ; James Buchanan,
John C. Breckinridge. On the other
hand, Jackson and Calhoun, both
from South-Carolina, served one term
together. Harrison, and Tyler, his
associate, were both from Virginia.
Lincoln and Andy Johnson were both
born in the South. (Sumner on the
Barbarism of Slavery.) But the man-ner
in which the offices of Secretary
of State and Secretary of the Treas-ury
have been filled demonstrates
the truthfulness of Dr. Channing's
views in regard to the political ten-dency
of the Southern mind, and the
practical and utilitarian character of
the Northern people. During the
first fourteen administrations of this
government, there were from the
States which held slaves up to 1864
fourteen Secretaries of State, and
but eight from the North. In this
enumeration the officer who held of-fice
for two terms has been counted
twice. If we do not so enumerate,
the South has had thirteen Secreta-ries
of State, and the North but six,
(6)—Pickering, Dexter, Adams, Van
Buren, Webster, and Buchanan. In
this time the North has had fifteen
(15) Secretaries of the Treasury, and
the South but six. Among the lat-tes
we have included R. J. Walker,
who was appointed from Mississippi,
but was born North ; and Louis AIc-
Lane, who hailed from Delaware, not
properly recognized as a Southern
State. During this long period, then,
we had but four men judged to have
sufficient financial ability to fill the
office of Secretary of the Treasury.
No doubt this opinion has been found-ed
in reason. We have no men of
preeminent business talents like those
who have built up immense fortunes
in the great cities of the North. Our
educational system has developed
theoretic, not practical qualities of
the mind ; at least not those which
relate to the monetary affairs of life.
Once more, the South has had in the
same period twice as many Attor-neys-
General as the North, and a few
more Secretaries of War and Navy.
The North, on the other hand, has
had one and a half times as many
more Postmasters-General than we.
Tlie facts and figures above have
been given in warning, not in boast-fulness.
The pride which we might
have felt in the glories of the past is
rebuked by the thought that these
glories have faded away. It is re-buked
by the thought that they
were purchased at the expense of the
material prosperity of the country
;
for men of wealth and talents did not
combine their fortunes, their ener-gies,
and their intellects to develop
the immense resources of the land
of their nativity. What factories
did they erect ? What mines did
they dig? What foundries did tliey
establish ? What machine-shops did
they build ? What ships did they
put afloat? Their -minds and their
hearts were engrossed in the strug-
1866.] Education.
gle for national position and national
honors. The yearning desire was
ever for political supremacy, and
never for domestic thrift and econ-omy.
Hence we became depend-ent
upon the North for every thing,
from a lucifer match to a columbiad,
from a pin to a railroad engine. A
state of war found us without the
machinery to make a single percus-sion
cap for a soldier's rifle, or a
single button for his jacket. The
system of labor which erected a
class covetous of political distinction
has been forever abolished ; but the
system of education based upon it is
still unchanged and unmodified. We
are now placed far below the reach of
political power ; but the training of
cur young men is precisel}'' the same
as when every collegian looked for-ward
as a matter of course to the
time when he should enter upon his
public career. The old method of
instruction was never wise ; it is now
worse than folly—'tis absolute mad-ness.
Is not attention to our field
and firesides of infinitely more im-portance
to us than attention to na-tional
affairs ? Is not a practical ac-quaintance
with the ax, the plane,
the saw, the anvil, the loom, the
plow and the mattock, vastly more
useful to an impoverished people
than familiarity with the laws of
nations and the science of govern-ment
? What will a knowledge of
the ancient classics, of metaphysics
and belles-lettres do to relieve our
povertj^ ? What will it add to our
prosperity ? We want' practical
learning, not scholastic lore. We
want business men with brain and
hand for work, not the recluses
of the library or the convent. A
McCormick with his reaper is more
valuable than a Porson with his
stores of Greek ; a Whitney with
his cotton-gin than a Bentham with
his theories of law. And what does
our educational system do to pro-duce
such men? If we needed a
president of a railroad, of a min-ing
or manufacturing company, who
would think of going to our colleges
to select the right man ? What would
be thought of the sanity of the stock-holder
who would gravely say,
" Young A is the very man we
need ; he was graduated with the
first honors of College. He
almost knows by heart the histories
of Herodotus and Livy in the orig-inal
tongues. The Right Reverend
President says he has never had
a pupil who so thoroughly mastered
Reid and Hamilton " ? If such a
speech would be regarded as the ex-treme
of folly, how conclusively does
it demonstrate that the long years of
that training which but disqualifies
for the practical and useful walks of
life, have not been spent in a manner
suitable for our present wants and
our unfortunate condition, nor to
our future prospects and develop-ment.
" Let the dead bury the
dead." Let the studies pursued
when prosperity crowned the land
be buried with that prosperity ; and
let us have a system which will
bring a greater beauty and glory to
our desolate places than ever adorn-ed
them in the days of their pomp
and their power. AH unconscious of
it, though most of us may be, a kind
Providence is working in the right
way for the land we love. As a
people, we specially needed two
things. AVe needed the cutting off
the temptation to seek political su-premacy,
in order that our common
school, academic and collegiate train-ing
should be directed to practical
ends ; not to making orators and
statesmen, and men whose stores
of useful knowledge may prove bless-ings
at home. The state of proba-tion,
pupilage, vassalage, or whatever
it,may be called, in which we have
been placed by the dominant party
in Congress is, we believe, intended
by the Griver of every good and perfect
gift to give us higher and nobler ideas
of education and of the duties of edu-cated
men. We deprecate as much
as any one can a low utilitarianism
in education. But surely the gifts
and learning which God has thought
proper to give to only a few should
be devoted by them not to promoting
personal aggrandizement, not to the
10 Education. [May,
attainment of political honors, but to
conferring benefits upon the less fa-vored
classes. We have a right to
expect that the educated men of the
country should be the leaders in every
enterprise of public weal and general
utility. They have not been so with
us, for the simple reason that they
know less of such matters than the
Ignorant rustics by w^hom they were
surrounded. We have a right to
expect that their illiterate neighbors
should come to them for counsel and
direction in their useful employments.
But such an expectation with us,
under an antiquated routine of stud-ies,
would be the height of folly. We
must change all that ; else the waste
places will never smile again, the de-solate
habitations will never again
echo with songs and laughter. In
this view we cannot but regard our
anomalous position as a positive good.
It may be mortifying to our pride to
be regarded as in the Union for pur-poses
of taxation and out of it for
purposes of legislation. But it will
turn our thoughts from the strife
of parties and the tilting in the po-litical
arena to the mightier work at
home. It will bury our present sys-tem
of education so deep among the
fossils of the past, that the most
curious antiquarian of the future will
be constrained to say : " No man
knoweth the place of its sepulchre
to this day."
Again, we needed to have manual
labor made honorable. And here a
kind Providence has brought good
out of evil. The best, the purest,
the most unselfish, the most patri-otic
of our people are now the poor-est.
They gave their hearts, their
energies, their property to the cause
they believed to be right ; and they
are honored by all true soldiers who
fought against them as much as by
ourselves. We honor that tattered
coat ; 'tis a fragment of the old gray
that was in many a storm of shot and
shell. 'Tis soiled, but it is with the
smoke of the camp-fire and the bat-tle-
field. There is no smell of selfish-ness
and cowardice upon it. We
can never pass it without a feeling
of respect, and without invoking
God's blessing upon the wearer.
Such a man dignifies labor. Those
who had no better sense than to de-spise
it, have learned to respect it for
his sake. It has become the badge
of manhood, patriotism, and un-selfishness.
God is now honoring
manual labor iciih us as he has
never done with any other nation.
It is the high-born, the cultivated,
the intelligent, the brave, the gen-erous,
who are now constrained to
work with their own hands. Labor
is thus associated in our mind with
all that is honorable in birth, refined
in manners, bi'ight in intellect, manly
in character and magnanimous in
soul. Much as we regret their mis-fortunes
for the sake of the noble
sufl^erers, we doubt not that in the
long run inestimable blessings will
flow upon us through these calami-ties.
Now that labor has been dignified
and cherished, we want it to be re-cognized
in our schools and colleges.
We do not want it to be the labor of
the mule and the ox. We want it
controlled and directed by education,
and to have all the appliances of art
and science thrown around it. We
ask for a practical recognition on the
part of those who have the teaching
of our youth of the state of things
now existing. The peasant, who
would confine the reading of his son
to Machiavelli's Discourse " On the
Prince," or Fenelon's "instructions
to his royal pupils," would be no
more ignoring his rank and station
than are our own teachers ignoring
the condition of the countrJ^ Is the
law of nations important to us, who
constitute nor state, nor colony, nor
territory ? Is the science of mind
useful to us just now, when our
highest duty is to mind our own
business? Will logic help us in
our reasoning as to wh-ether we are
in or out of the Union ? Will the
flowers of rhetoric plant any roses in
our "burnt districts"? Will ora-tory
benefit those who have no con-stituents
to harangue, no legislative
halls to entrance ? Will political
1866.] Education. 11
economy be as valuable to an im-poverished
people as a knowledge of
household economy ? Will the figur-ative
digging of Greek and Latin roots
aid us in extracting the real articles
from our neglected fields ? The old
plan of education in the palmy days
of the South gave us orators and
statesmen, but did nothing to en-rich
us, nothing to promote material
greatness. Let not that be said of
us which Bonaparte said of the
Bourbons: "They learned nothing;
they forgot nothing." It is lawful
to be taught by those who have far
excelled us in developing the re-sources
of the country. So great
and so universal is the attention to
science among all classes with them,
that the great orator of New Eng-land,
a few years ago, was chosen
to deliver the astronomical discourse
upon laying the corner-stone of an
observatory in the West. About the
same time the eminent President of
a Southern college delivered and
published an address to prove that
the standard of mathematical science
in our institutions of learning ought
to be lowered. (Until then we had
supposed that zero was the lowest
figure in the table of numbers.) The
system of instruction proposed by
this great, good, and wise man was
no doubt adapted to make pro-found
thinkers on abstruse and
metaphysical points; but it could
never have made one single practical
and useful man. It could never have
improved the condition of the poor.
It could never have added to the ma-terial
comforts and enjoyments of
life. It could never have lifted a
ruined people from the depths of
misery to a state of affluence and
independence. It could never have
made "one blade of grass grow
where none grew before." We want,
on the contrary, a comprehensive
plan of instruction, which will em-brace
the useful rather than the
profound, the practical rather than
the theoretic; a system which will
take up the ignorant in his degrada-tion,
enlighten his mind, cultivate
his heart, and fit him for the solemn
duties of an immortal being ; a sys-tem
which will come to the poor in
his poverty, and instruct him in the
best method of procuring food, rai-ment,
and the necessaries of life ; a
system which will give happiness to
the many, and not aggrandizement to
the few ; a system which will foster
and develop mechanical ingeniiity
and relieve labor of its burden ; which
will entwine its laurel wreath around
the brow of honest industry, and
frown with contempt upon the idle
and worthless. When our young
men come forth from schools, acade-mies,
and colleges with their minds
and hearts imbued with this sublime
teaching, to enter upon the busy
arena of life, they will be fully
qualified to turn their strong hands
and well-stored minds to any and
every useful employment. Then the
wilderness and solitary place shall be
glad for them ; and the desert shall
rejoice and blossom as the rose. "It
shall blossom abundantly, and re-joice
even with joy and singing."
Then Mali " the days come when the
plowman shall overtake the reaper,
and the treader of grapes him that
soweth seed ; and the mountains
shall drop sweet wine, and all the
hills shall melt." Then shall the
captivity of our people be removed,
"and they shall build the waste
cities, and inhabit them; and they
shall plant vineyards, and drink the
wine thereof; they shall also make
gardens, and eat the fruit of them.
They shall be planted upon their
land, and shall no more be pulled up
out of the land," which the Lord
their God giveth them.
D. H. H.
{To le continued.)
13 How Great Britain Estimates Ingenuity and Shill. [May,
HOW GREAT BKITAIN ESTIMATES INGENUITY AND SKILL; AND HONORS MEN
WHO TURN SCIENCE TO A PRACTICAL ACCOUNT IN PROMOTION OF THE
UTILITARIAN ARTS.
There is no royal road to nation-al
greatness. The ever-abounding
wealth and unparalleled glory and
strength of Great Britain are only
the legitimate result of a wise policy,
early adopted and efficiently execut-
&A—tTiat of encouraging skill, and
rewarding its application to practi-cal
purposes.
Whole volumes of facts and ex-amples
might be adduced, demon-strating
at once the persistent susten-tation
of that policy, and its eminent-ly
beneficial results. But I shall at
present given only a single noted
example — that of James Watt,
noted for his great and beneficent
improvement of the steam-engine.
He was of respectable parents,
but without ancestral distinction.
He brought himself into notice by
his own personal efforts. His mind
was naturally acute and active. He
was early noted for investigation and
reflection. His skill and attainment
soon gave him great prominence.
Universities conferred upon him their
highest honors. Various other cor-porations
and organizations did the
same.
In honor of him and his discover-ies
a bronze statue was erected by
subscription at Glasgow ; another,
of white marble, was placed in the
"Hunterian Museum" of the same
city. But the climax of distinction
and honor was reached by the action
of a great public meeting, held after
his death, in the city of London,
in which several chief men of the
realm were the principal actors.
Cotemporary writers declare that
the meeting at which it was deter-mined
to erect a white marble statue
to the memory of Watt, was one of
the most interesting that ever was
held in the metropolis.
That meeting was held on the 18th
of June, 1824. Lord Liverpool, then
Prime Minister, presided. That day
will be memorable in the history of
that great nation, as the day in which
ingenuity and skill reached a culmi-nation
of dignity and honor unpar-alleled
in the history of nations. It
was the great public baptismal also of
the industrial arts—the high ofiicials
of the realm standing as '
' god-fath-ers,"
commending them to the warm
embrace and the fostering care of the
nation ! Nor can we wonder at this,
when we remember how vastly, even
before that period, that ingenuity and
those arts had contributed to the
greatness of that nation.
In relation to this matter, one of
their own writers says :
"It would be singular indeed if the
arts were not thus honored. And a
minister of the Crown would be unfit for
the government of our industrial com
munity if he did not feel that the greal
inventions which have grown out of our
commercial superiority, and which have,
in a large degree, created that superiority,
were eminently calculated to claim the
noblest rewards that the people could
bestow."
But the "animus" of the meet-ing
will be best understood from their
proceedings. Sir Humphry Davy
moved the following resolution
:
"That the late James Watt, by his
profound science, and by his original
genius, exhibited in his admirable in-ventions,
has, more than any of his coun-trymen,
demonstrated the practical utility
of knowledge, increased the power of
man over the material world, and ex-tended
the comforts and enjoyments of
human life."
Another resolution, which declarjed
" that the services of' James Watt
to the civilized world demanded a
national tribute of gratitude from his
country," was proposed by Mr. Hus-kisson
and seconded by Sir James
Mackintosh. From the thrilling speech
of this distinguished philosophical
1866.] How Great Britain Estimates Ingenuity and SMll. 13
orator we quote the following para- deserves and demands the attention
graph
:
and consideration of every South-
"In less than half a century, from the ^\ P'^^J'^'l*- ^he ^oisdom of Great
Mississippi to the Ganges, the name of -Dritain is demonstrated by her^j(??%.
Watt has been pronounced, and the bene- -^^^ ^"^ ^^7 Profit greatly from her
fits of his invention have been proved ! example. It was the only policy that
If such a vast progress has been made ever could have given to her the vast
in so small a number of years, Avhat resources and the astounding great-hopes
may we not entertain of the fu- ness which she has acquired. The
ture?—seeing that the useful and the very opposite of the course which we
line arts in combination have spread of the South have followed and laud-general
information amongst sucli a mul- gd as the only honorable and desira-titude
of minds -that knowledge has ^i^ ^as made her the mistress
been placed within the reach oi the hum- ^f +i „ ' „„ j j.u i x- iu
blest artisans -and that this class of
,f
*^^ ""^^ ^"'^ ^^^ glory of the na-men
for the most part remarkable for „, '
, , , ,„ . ,
their intelligent, ingenious, active spirit, ,
^^® ^^^ ^^ne herself great honor,
are full of the desire of instruction."' ^^^o, not only by so hberally patron-
„, ,- . , ... a rru i ^^^^"g ^^^ ^^*^S' b^t "^ honoring those
The third resolution, That a to whom she is mainly indebted for monument to the niemory of Watt her eminent greatness. Noble traits!
should be erected m Westminster Commendable example
!
Abbey," was proposed by Lord .^ith what earnestness and ani-
Brougham, and seconded by Sir mating power should the trumpet-m,
/ii "• , • 1 tones of her examples and unparal-
The followmg paragraph is charac- leled prosperity bear now upon us
teristic of its distinguished author, of the South in our present prostrate
Lord Brougham, who said : and crippled condition ! " Go, and do
"It is to honor the rare and excellent
^^^ likewise." "Emulate this noble
qualities of his character and genius example, and secure to yourselves
that we are assembled, with the intention l^^e beneficent results," is what it
to erect a monument to the memory of earnestly exhorts. B.
the great engineer. Not that his mem-ory
has need of a monument to become Editorial Comment.—The statue
immortal ; for his name will last as long of which our correspondent speaks
as the power which he has subjected to was erected by Chantrey in West-the
use of man; but we are assembled minster Abbey, where repose the
to consecrate his example in the face of ashes of Britain's most illustrious
the universe and to show to all our ^^^^ Watt was also honored during
lellow-subiects tnat a man of extraordi- i,- i-^^ -u^ i. • j t t -r. ^
nary talent can not better employ it than ^^f
^'^^ by bemg made an LL.D. of
in rendering services to the human race. ^}^3^^Z ^"l^^^I'Sitj, Correspondent
And where could we more fitly place the ^i *^® J^^'^"^^
Institute, and Fellow
monument of this great man than with- <^f ^^e Royal Societies of London and
in a temple of that religion which preach- Edinburgh. When will America learn
es peace to all men, and instruction for to lavish her favors upon her great
the poor ? The Pagan temples were inventors, as she has done upon her
decorated with the statues of warriors politicians ? Whitney and Fulton
who had spread desolation amongst the were harassed and annoyed by vex-people
! Let ours be adorned with the atious law-suits as the reward of their
statues of men who have contributed to inventions. McCormick has reaped
the triumphs of science and humanity, wealth, but no distinctions have been
tlfhoutTer havin tlT^l to' f
^^^f^^red upon him. What a revo-his
fellow^creat^ures^ ha? be?raWe\7ac- ]^^'^^ ^" ^^.^^^^^ ^^^^ \^^^ introduced
complish works which remain a lasting "^^ *^,? ^^\^x^?^' ^ ^'^^. ^.^® ^ventor,
honor and benefit to society." ^ native North-Oarolinian, died in
poverty and obscurity at New-Berne,
The "life-picture" above exhibited North- Carolina.
14 General Wise^s Address. [May,
The foregoing article is from the
pen of one who has labored long in
the field of Southern education, and
who deeply feels the necessity of
adapting our educational system to
the new state of things. But South-ern
youth are ambitious, and honor
as well as wealth must attend the
great inventor and the successful
artisan, else mechanical skill will
never be developed among us.
Charleston has set the example by
sending to the Legislature a delega-tion
of mechanics. May the day
speedily come when inventive talent
and industry in all its branches will
meet the reward the most grateful
to the Southern heart—the approba-tion
of wise men and fair women.
CxENERAL WISE S ADDRESS.
DELIVERED AT THE SECOND BAPTIST CHURCH, RICHMOND, VIRGINIA,
JANUARY SOth, 1866.
subject: "female orphanage."
Generaxi Wise always throws him-self
into the breach at the right mo-ment.
His noble and manly instincts
always prompt him to do the right
thing at the right time. Years ago,
when the wild waves of " Know-nothingism"
had rolled over the en-tire
North, and its resistless surges
had reached our borders, the voice of
"the old man eloquent" was heard
above the roar of its waves and the
war of the elem.ents. The tide rolled
no further. The storm ceased, and
there was a great calm. But if ha-tred
of foreigners and of Catholics
found no place in the Southern heart,
it was due to the powerful arguments
and fiery eloquence of Henry A.
Wise. A revulsion of feeling took
place even on the soil whence the
persecuting spirit sprung. Those
who had most bitterly denounced
this class of persons were the very
first to call upon them to fight their
Union battles with the South. Meagh-er's
brigade of Catholic Irish was in
front for the attack and in rear for
the retreat, till it ceased to exist at
the bloody stone wall of Mar3^e's Hill.
A band of heroes composed that
staunch brigade as true as any ever
sent forth by that land of heroes.
And now, after more than a decade
of years, the same man, with riper
experience and maturer wisdom.
pleads the noblest of causes and
makes the noblest of appeals—char-ity
for the orphans of our departed
heroes. But while he, in his earnest
and impassioned way, arouses the
compassion of all, except the gold-worshipers,
for the children of want
and of bereavement, he has perform-ed
a still nobler duty in his thrilling
tribute to our soldiery. This, too,
like his onslaught upon Know-noth-ingism,
came just at the right time.
There were those among us wearing
the "toga virilis" who were exceed-ingly
nervous when the man in blue
saw them talking with the rusty man
in gray. There were those who fear-ed
to welcome back to their homes
and their firesides the men who had
gone forth at their behest to peril
life and limb, and all that the heart
of man holds dear. General Wise
has no such craven fear in his large
heart. He has struck a chord which
will find a responsive vibration in
every generous bosom both North
and South. When men were cring-ing
and bowing with bated breath,
he comes out with his magnificent
eulogy upon the Confederate soldier,
and his touching entreaty for the or-phans
of the Confederate dead. The
great clock of some grand old cathe-dral
peals out the hour in the black-ness
of the night, and straightway a
1866.] General Wise''s Address. 15
thousand musical chimes welcome
his voice, and in sweetest strains
echo it back. So this watchman on
the tower has struck a note in this
hour of our gloom and our darkness,
which will awaken answering melody
in ten thousand times ten thousand
hearts all over this broad and beauti-ful
land, irrespective of sectional
lines and geographic boundaries.
Every soul attuned to the music of
heaven will join in the sublime an-them
of praise to deeds of heroism
and constancy, such as the world
never saw before. "We would not be
guilty of the mean slander upon
those who fought us manfully in the
field to say that they can not appre-ciate
the grand and the heroic as
well as ourselves. If they claim a
common brotherhood, who can deny
them a right to a common heritage in
Confederate fame ?
All honor to the faithful sentinel
on, his post ! All honor to the old
hero, who has spoken "words of
truth and soberness," as well as of
genuine pathos and thrilling elo-quence
! The tribute to "the men
in the ranks" is "a gem of purest
ray serene," and we are sure it will
be admired in all sections of the
Union. If we neglect to honor these,
who have deserved so much more
than "the men of rank," we will
richly merit a worse fate than our
most implacable enemies can con-ceive,
much less prepare, for us.
There can be no surer mark of na-tional
degeneracy and public corrup-tion
than indifference to the great
deeds of the good, the noble, and the
true. Rome ceased to be the mis-tress
of the world when she began to
neglect her illustrious living and to
forget her mighty dead. It is an
encouraging mark of the general dif-fusion
of right sentiment that many
of our dead heroes, ay, and some of
our living ones, too, are as much
revered in one part of our reiinited
country as in the other. • The piety
of Jackson, the daring of Stuart,
the chivalry of Ashby, the romantic
gallantry of Pelham, the unyielding
heroism of Elliott amidst the ruins
of Sumter— our glorious dead— all
have contributed to American fame,
and all are claimed by the American
people.
But the Address does more than
mete out justice to the hero-soldier.
It calls for active, practical, working,
givmg sympathy with the suffering
orphan of the martyr-dead. We
have grievously sinned as a people,
and God has justly punished us for
our sins ; but we will commit a dark-er,
deeper, more deadly sin, if we
fail to provide for the children of
those who died for our sakes and
fighting our battles. And such neg-lect
will most surely bring upon us
a heavier and more awful visitation
of the wrath of God. How can that
young lady enjoy her trinkets, her
jewelry, and her gay apparel, when
the wail of the orphan is in her ears ?
How dare that young fopling, who
has never heard the whistle of a hos-tile
shot, parade his finery about the
streets, when the children of the man
in his bloody grave are crying for
bread ? If not lost to all shame, his
cheeks would be more crimson than
the shroud of the martyr.
The Address of General Wise was
for the benefit of the orphans in
Richmond ; but it is appropriate to
every town, city, village, and coun-ti-
y-neighborhood in the whole Unit-ed
States. There are suffering or-phans
in all of them. The wealthy
North has them as well as the ruin-ed
South. The claims of humanity
are the same in every locality. Let
provision be made for the orphan of
the Union soldier as well as of the
soldier of independence. We honor
the true soldier wherever found as
mUch as we loathe and abhor the
marauder and house-burner, who dis-graces
the noble profession of arms.
The implacable, revengeful men of
the North are not those who fought
us fairly and squarely face to face.
The discontented grumblers at the
South are not those who stuck to
their colors through every trial, pri-vation,
suffering, and discourage-ment.
These feel that they did what
they could to establish Southern in-
16 General Wise's Address. [May,
dependence ; and, having failed, they the fountains of life flow. It is placed
will abide by their terms of surren- in the cradle of a parent's care, but
der in good faith, and leave the issue
with the Great Ruler of the universe.
In the most catholic spirit of sym-pathy,
then, with the suffering or-phans
ofthe soldiers, Union and rebel,
of the whole United States, we com-mend
the address of General Wise to
all who have hearts to feel and hands
still it wails and wants. It then
cra'wls and cries ; and then toddles up
in steps to wail, and steps forth to
play and cries ; and then walks to
wail on and still on wails, even when
it stands full up to man or woman-hood.
Day by day, night and morn-ing,
from infancy to youth, and from
to relieve these children of want and 3^outh to age, through all stages of
misery. that child's existence, whilst a parent
survives to heed its wants and its
Mr Friends : I address myself to wails, it will come and come again,
no speculative theme. I am here to- often and ever, to the parent for sue
night to utter a cry !—the most pierc- cor, for care, for caress, for comfort,
ing to the ears and the hearts of all It is no mere rural English custom
who have ears and hearts for human for the child of every age to have its
distress and suffering—the cry of the '' midlenting.,'''' it is the impulse of
orphan! ofthe most helpless orphans; nature for it to "^o a-motJiering,''^ so
the cry of the female orphans of your strong is the law that the parent must
city. It is for food and raiment and ever be the source of some provision
shelter—for a home, and that that or supply needed by the child, and
home shall not only be made warm that the child will and must and
with fuel, but that it shall be made to ever look to its father and its
glow with a bright burning love, and mother. And to meet this yearning-be
fed not only with the bread of the dependence of offspring, the instinct-grass
ofthe fields, but ha filled with ive love and recognition, or storge, as
the bread of life, and to spare ; that it is called, of parents, has been given
it shall be so fed and so filled that it to care and provide for offspring. The
shall give back and give forth the good parent may be weak, the child strong
;
it has received with the heavenly in- the parent may be poor, the child rich
;
terest on that good which it shall in old age may whiten both father and
turn bestow. mother until utter weakness weighs
man! at best "thy days are them down, and they need help from
few and full of trouble." A child is children; and yet, there is always
born, and its first note is a cry—a something which offspring want from
wail of humanity. From its first parents, and which parents only can
breath, it wants and it wails. Well give, and when reverent children wait
it is that nature has provided one upon them with full powers of their
heart, at least, if none other, to be own, and the best of their own means,
touched by infant cries, with a thrill it is still the child more than the
known only to but one on earth. The parent who is served,
babe is wrapped in swaddling-clothes This strong love of parent and child,
and it is laid in arms which fold it to if exceeded by any, exceeded only b}''
the bosom of a mother ! woman ! that love for which we are commanded
woman, to whom a child is born, ^7;,(?M to leave father and mother, and to
knowest, and thou o?2Z?/knowest, what cleave to another, is the only stand-a
wonder and what a world of holy ard—immense as it is—of the measure
love is in that fold of thine ! Thou of the bereavement of orphanage. To
answerest its cries; thou forgettest judge how desolate, how helpless,
thine oion travail to heed them, and how constantly yearning and crying
they are hushed by a fountain the in vain orphanage is, we have but to
holiest and blessedest that ever flowed measure the loss of parents by their
on earth—a mothers 'breast! The providential care, by their strong-child
is drawn to that breast whilst storge, by their mighty love, by their
1866.]
State Library Of North
Ralsigh, N.C.
General Wise's Addrese, 17
instinctive guardian power and their
magic 4K>iirce of sympathy and com-fort
for their own offspring. Well
may the brightest and bravest babe
wail the gift of its very being, if it has
to wail the loss of a father's and a
mother's blessing. It may smile in
health and vigor at the bliss of birth
;
it may bound into being with cherub
joy ; it may be the child of fortune
it may be wrapped in finest linen and
be rocked on softest down, and be
most tenderly watched and waited on,
waking and sleeping; its cries may
be hushed by sweetest lullaby ; it
may be nourished by the ^jop of most
attentive kindness, and grow and
bloom in beauty ; it may be the pet
of a princess ; but if it has, though in
unconscious infancy, lost its mother
—
if it has to coo to another nurse than
mother, the time will come when, if
the mother be not there, that child,
like the child of the bulrushes, will
surely find out, and know and feel
that even the sweet Termuthis, Pha-raoh's
daughter, or her nurse, is not
its mother—that it can know no other
mother than the Jochebed who is its
own. "By faith, Moses, when he
was come to years, refused to be called
the son of Pharaoh's daughter." Yes
!
the time ever comes to every orphan
to know and feel—to those, even, who
never, in infancy, knew and felt a
parent—that they have no father and
mother. The bour loill some time
come that the orphan will know and
feel that some other child 7i<zs a father
and a mother, and that it has neither
parent. And oh ! how sadly old a
child is suddenly made when it is
made first to know and feel it is an
orphan
!
And if this be so sadly true of for-tune's
favorite and pet, what must be
the desolation of the bereavement of
poverty's orphan child? Shall the
orphans of the poor live ? How shall
they live ? Not live the life of mere
physical existence, but morally and
intellectually live a life of useful labor
and of love? Ah ! if no hand be
reached forth to help them with a
mighty help, they will, intellectually
and morally, surely die. Think not,
VOL. I.—NO. I.
lowly man of labor ! that this
should deter thee from seeking to en-joy
the blessings of marriage and of
progeny. If Douglas Jerrold's man
made "all of money," shot through
heart so that it might be seen through
and yet survive to shoot out of life in
a way worse than that of being shot
through the heart ; or the proud man's
contumely ; or the selfish, worldly,
unfeeling, stingy man ; or the miser
or money - monger, whose piety is
property, shall say that the poor have
no right to marry and give in mar-riage,
and leave children to tax their
wealth with an orphan asylum, I re-pel
the impious rebellion against God's
orders, and tell you that you have not
only the right to wedlock, but it is
your duty to love as well as labor ! If
you have right to space and air, to
light and flowing water, to think and
speak, to read and write and work
;
so it is the highest of your natural
rights to seek the happiness of matri-mony,
the holiest tie on earth. You,
poor but strong young man, are bound
by God's command to seek a helpmate,
and to cherish a wife and her child-ren.
The very desire to do so shall
elevate your mind, nerve your arm,
and inspire your heart with the spirit,
brave and noble, to strike the sturdy
blows of manly labor, with a right
good will, to gain the vantage stations
of life. And the young maiden, with-out
a dowry, should learn to spin for
some worthy son of toil, and not re-fuse
the hand of labor, though poor,
on whose strong arm she can lean the
safety of her virtue, in the love and
purity of wife and mother. That you
will have to labor is best both for
parents and their offspring. Labor
gives the bloom of health and the
sinew of strength to progeny, and
provides a country with a country's
pride—a brave, strong, bold, and noble
yeomanry—" its irresistible valor and
heroic force." Do you repel this cheer-ful
philanthropy, and morosely ask :
"Why does God make orphans of the
children of the poor and not so order
it that they shall have a sure asylum ?'
'
The question is impious. Leave the
solution to Him. It is enough for us
18 General Wise's Address. [May.
to know that He once descended from
the heavens and became as one of the
poorest of us, of no estate : that "the
foxes had holes, and the birds of the
air nests, but he had not where to lay
his head: " that he took, from the
poor only a little ointment for his feet,
and that because he was " 7wt to ie
always tcitJi «s." But'he told us that
the poor we " would always have
with us," and if the poor, then the
children of the poor were " always to
be with us," and he left his provision
for them too—a Christian charity, a
holy religion which he defined to be
" pvire and undefiled before God and
the Father"—" to visit the widow and
the fatherless, and to keep one's self
unspotted from the world." He re-buked
those who hindered " little
children '
' from coming to him, and
he took them in his arms and blessed
them, and told us "of such is the
kingdom of heaven." And he told
us more : " that it were better for one
to have a millstone tied about his
neck and to be thrown into the sea
than to offend one of his little ones."
If I understand these revelations,
orphan children, and orphan children
of the poor especially, are some of his
" little ones," and they in this world
who do not visit these "little ones"
and assist in providing for them, do
them an ojfense, and incur the divine
threat of the millstone. The Father
of us all, in his economy of grace, has
set poverty, helpless poverty, the
orphans of the poor, before us in the
world, like many other trials, to prove
our virtue and to test our obedience.
The Infinite Sufferer consented to
suffering in his own case, and the
poor may not righteously complain
that they as well as the sick and the
lame, and the halt and the blind, and
the countless other classes of sufferers
have to bear every one of their own
burdens in this world : the poor will
always have to suffer the poverty, but
the strong and the rich and the hale
had better beware of giving offense to
one of these " little ones," by neglect-ing
the widow and not visiting the
fatherless of the poor, and thus caus-ing
them to stumble and to fall.
world, worldly world, wealthy
world, working world, vodW fed,
well clothed, well sheltered, well
warmed world! fashionable and
proud world! that word '^ visiting ^^
means that you shall seek to know
and to supply the wants of the poor
:
that you shall care always for the
widows and the orphans of the poor,
and from your abundance satisfy their
wants : that you shall always have
them to try your virtue and to make
you unselfish, loving, kind, and charit-able—
to keep them from stumbling
and falling ; to enrich yourselves
whilst you fill them ; and to make
you, sooner or later, feel that if you
do not do this Christian duty, that if
jou leave them to stumble for want,
and thus be offended, you shall be left
to the canker and corrosion of selfish-ness
and the greed of gold, which will
be worse than having a millstone
about the neck and being thrown into
the sea ! The penalty of the rich or of
the strong who fail to use righteously
their wealth or their strength, to help
the poor and the weak, is sure, if tlie
asylum of the poor and weak on earth
is not. Love is the chief solace of
the poor, and their only treasures and
jewels are their children. The poor,
frail, sick mother often shivers in the
blast, but she bares her own nerves
to shield her babe and she dies
!
Who will shield that babe when she
is taken away ? Alas ! the orphan of
the poor is bereft of all when father
and mother are taken away, and it is
left alone in the world with poverty
and misery ! Will you not be with it
too?
But what if that 2)oor orphan is a
female child ; if feminine weakness
be added to the helpless infancj^ the
povert}^ the loneliness of its orphan-age
? woman ! born to be a
mother, that thou shouldst ever be
bereft of a mother, and thy infancy
be thus left alone with want, and suf-fering,
and sorrow, and sin ! With
nerves most delicately attuned to feel,
to enjoy, and suffer most acutely ; to
thrill and quiver at every touch of
pleasure or of pain ; sensitively affect-ed
by any rude contact ; capable of
1866.] General Wise's Address. 19
the most unselfish, self-sacrificing
love, and always yearning for its
smile ; with perceptions keen and
quick to understand and feel every
tone, and temper, and motive, and
manner of treatment to thee ; thus, in
the tenderness of thy infancy and
innocence, to be dashed on the hard,
jagged pavements of the streets and
alleys of cities ! Well may thy cries
he heard above the wails of all the
throng of infantile orphanage ! Thou
art the tenderest ; thou art the weak-est
; thou art the frailest and yet the
most sensitive of them all ; ah ! more
still, thou art the most sacred of them
all ; thou, thyself, mayest be an hon-ored
mother, and mayest not be a
mother at all, if thou art abused ; and
thou wilt be abused if angels seek
thee not and lead thee not away from
exposure to the poverty, suffering,
ignorance and vice of helpless orphan-age
! Thou especially art one of the
"little ones" whom we are forbidden
to "offend." Thy condition is more
than miserable if some kind hand does
not provide for thee an asylum, and
provide that asylum with the best of
good things, suitable not only to thy
state and condition of orphanage, but
to thy sacred sex !
Measured by the love and care of
parents for their offspring, and by the
divine economy of the relation of
parent and child, the fate of orphan-age,
I repeat, is hard under any con-dition
of the infant; harder still is the
orphanage of poverty, and hardest of
all is the bereavement of the poor
female orphan. How sad to think,
then, friends, of a female orphan of
poverty.1 'bereft in times like these!
Some of these innocents are under
two years of age, and their first breath
inhaled the sulphurous smoke of
civil war ! The air of their birth was
lurid with the red rage of their coun-trymen
making a charnel-house of
their country, whose every field is a
graveyard of fathers, husbands, sons,
brothers ! "War has reigned and ra-vaged
nearly all the time of the few
years of their existence; and now,
that its alarms have ceased, the air
of svibjugation around them is dank
and dismal with the exhalation of
graves and the gloom of ruins ! Fire
and sulphur have burned and smoked
the very earth, and its ashes are arid
!
Oh! the barrenness and pallor and
yet the putridity and stench of the
stricken corpse of a country ! All the
rivers of plenty have been dried up
The grass sprouts and grows from
blood only ; the rains of peace can not
wash it away ! Want, want, want,
cries ! Suffering groans ! Crime is
rampant all around these innocents
Their land is the corpse of the past.
They have no past and no country.
None have a country who have no
home.
"Alas poor country ! It can not
Be called our mother, but our grave !"
Finance has failed. Confederate
funds are dross, and Federal currency
is sought after and caught at eagerly,
but as eagerly passed on from hand
to hand for him to pay the forfeit in
whose»hands it goes out ; and gold is
kept so close that the needy strong
can hardly help themselves. There
is no harvest but for those who have
most of bread, and what harvest there
is has no laborers—no husbandmen.
The arms of the laborers were turned
into the arms of the invaders, and
laborers and invaders are now both
consumers of the substance of a
people who have been stripped bare,
and now have but little to spare
!
These orphans, then, must surely
sorely suffer in these times, unless the
charity of each and every one of us
shall enlarge herself and be mighty
in more than ordinary exertion of ac-tive
love and liberality and self-denial.
But, my friends, these times of stag-nation
atnd apparent starvation ; these
times of stunning after sudden shock
these times of strange changes, as
startling as bursting bombshells
;
these times of shifting chances, as
trying to the strongest nerves as bat-tle's
batteries ; these are the times to
prove our truth, our piety, our pa-triotism,
our endurance, our constan-cy,
and these are the times, more
than ever, to be true to ourselves
and to each other !—to comrades who
20 General Wise''s Address. [May,
are dead as well as to those who are
living.
There are among these infants not
only orphans, orphans of the poor,
female orphans, and orphans whose
lot has been cast in dreary and des-olate
time's ; but some of these are
the female orphans of deceased and
disabled Confederate • soldiers, pri-vates
in the ranks which jou embat-tled
for your independence. You failed
only by the fall of such men. They
fell for you, and you fell. Are any
afraid or ashamed to embrace them
in the fall? Listen, whilst I repeat
truths which you must not try and
must not dare to forget ; truths which,
if you do not gratefully recognize and
openly avow and maintain at all ha-zards,
without the fear of showing
sympathy, if not without some re-proach,
shame ! shame ! shame ! shall
so shout and hoot at shrimped, and
shriveled, sordid, selfish souls as to
shake them like misers' money-bags,
until with appalling jars theTr coin-idols
shall be jostled out and scatter-ed
to street-beggars and vagrants of
the "Arts of Industrie !" War itself
appalled not the hearts of the Confed-erate
heroes who fell ; and war is now
over; the cloud has burst; the light-ning
hath done its scathing; the
thunder hath ceased to mutter; in
honor's name, then, let craven cring-ing
cease
!
The noblest band of men who
ever fought or who ever fell in the
annals of war, whose glorious deeds
history ever took pen to record, were,
I exultingly claim, the private sol-diers
in the armies of the great Con-federate
cause. Whether right or
wrong in the cause which they es-poused,
they were earnest and honest
patriots in their convictions, who
thought that they were right to defend
their own, their native land, its soil,
its altars, and its honor. They felt
that they were no rebels and no trai-tors
in obeying their State sovereign-ties,
and they thought that it was
lawful to take up arms under their
mandates, authorized expressly by
the Federal Constitution, to repel
invasion or to suppress insurrection.
when there was such '•' imminerd
danger as not to admit of delay.''''
The only reason for the delay which
could have been demanded of them
was to have appealed to the invaders
themselves for defense against their
own invasion ; and whether there was
imminent danger or not, events have
proved. They have been invaded un-til
every blade of grass has been trod-den
down, until every sanctuary of
temple, and fane, and altar, and home
has been profaned. The most of these
men had no stately mansions for their
homes ; no slaves to plow and plant
any broad fields of theirs ; no stocks
or investments in interest-bearing
funds. They were poor, but proudly
patriotic and indomitably brave.
Their country was their only heri-tage.
The mothers and wives and
daughters buckled on the belts, and
sent husbands and sons and brothers
forth, and women toiled for the bread
and spun the raiment of "little ones"
of "sAaH^2/" homes in country, or of
shops in town, whilst their champions
of defense were in their country's
camps, or marches, or trenches, or
battles ! They faithfully followed lead-ers
whom they trusted and honored.
Nor Cabinets, nor Congress, nor Com-missariat,
nor Quartermaster's De-partment,
nor speculators, nor spies,
nor renegades, nor enemy's emis-saries,
nor poverty, nor privation,
nor heat, nor cold, nor sufferings, nor
toil, nor danger, nor wounds, nor
death could impair their constancy
!
They fought with a devout confi-dence
and courage which was un-conquerable
save by starvation, block-ade,
overwhelming numbers, foreign
dupes and mercenaries, Yankeedom,
Negrodom, and death ! Prodigies of
valor, miracles of victories, undoubt-ed
and undoubting devotion and en-durance
to the last, entitled them to
honors of surrender which gilded the
arms of their victors and extorted
from them even cheers on the battle-field
where at last they yielded for
Peace ! Alas ! how many thousands
had fallen before their few surviving
comrades laid down their arms ! Of
these men of the ranks their beloved
1866.] General Wise^s Address. 21
leader, General R. E. Lee, said to me
during the last winter on the lines
:
" Sir, the men of this war who will
deserve the most honor and gratitude
are 7iot the men ofranh, hut the men
of the rcmJcs—the privates !" I cor-dially
concurred in the justice and
truth of the compliment, for I had
seen them tried on the rocks of Coal
river, of Gauley, and the Pocotalico.
I had tested their endurance in the
marches and countermarches, and
scouting and skirmishing, of the Ka-nawha
Valley ; I had seen them in a
first fight and victory against all odds
at Scary, and their last stand against
greater odds on the Sewall moun-tains
; I had seen their constancy
and courage proved at Hawk's Nest,
at Honey Creek, at Big Creek, at
Carnifax Ferry, and at Camp Defi-ance,
in North-west Virginia. I had
seen them leap with alacrity to the
defense of Roanoke Island, knowing
when they went that they could not
return but as captives or corpses. I
have seen them in the " Slaughter
Pen" there slay twice their own num-bers
before they stacked the arms for
which they had no ammunition. I
have seen them employ their leisure
and amuse their ennui at ChafBn's
farm by mechanic arts for the army
of a blockaded country ! I have seen
their efficiency on the peninsulas of
the James and York, and of the Chic-kahominy
and Pamunkey. I have
seen their successful strategy at Wil-liamsburgh
and Whitaker's Mill,
and their steadiness in the din of
metal at Malvern Hill. I have seen
their temper and spirit tried in the
lagoons and galls of the Edisto and
Stono, and their pluck on John's Is-land,
in South-Carolina. I have
heard the shouts of the Virginia men
when ordered back from South-Caro-lina
and Florida to rally again around
the altars of home, and heard them
raise the slogan of "Old Virginia
Never Tire," when they pressed for-ward
to open the defile at Nottoway
Bridge, and rushed to Petersburg in
time twice to save the Cockade City
against odds of more than ten to one.
I have seen them drive through the
barricade and cut at Walthall June"
tion, and storm the lines at How
left's, not for five days only, but for
twice five days' successive fighting.
I have seen them on the picket-lines
and in the trenches, throughout all
seasons of the yeai", in heat and cold,
day and night, in storm and sunshine,
often without food fit to feed brutes,
with not enough of that ; without half
enough of fuel, or clothing, or blan-kets
; under the most incessant fire
of shot and shell ; without forage for
transportation, and without transport-ation
for forage ; scarce of ordnance
stores ; not supplied with medicines
for the hospital ; all the time rolling
a Sisyphean stone of parapet, and
traverse, and breastwork, and bomb-proof,
for the want of material for
revetment, and for the want of tools
to dig out and work up the indis-pensable
lines of defenses. I have
seen their manhood worn by every
variety of disease and wounds in the
hospital wards. Starved, half-naked,
rest broken, I have seen them sum-moned
to stand to or to storm the
breach, and do it, filling ditches and
a crater full of the assailant's dead.
I have seen their brigades blasted by
the shock of mines, and rise from the
debris and rubbish to repel and con-quer
the storming enemy. I have
seen them bivouacked on the right of
Hatcher's Run, and on the ever me-morable
days of the 29th and 31st of
March last, advance first one, then
two, then less than three brigades, on
the Military and Boydton plank
roads, against two corps^ and fight
them for hours, and so stagger them
that they dared not follow the retreat.
I have seen them on the quick night
march to Church Crossings, and
thence hnrried to the Namozine, to
Flat Creek, to Big Creek, to Sailor's
Creek, to the High Bridge, and to
Farmville, marching and charging,
and charging and marching, and
starving, but not sleeping or stopping
on the way but to work or to fight.
And I have seen them fire their last
volleys at Appomattox ; and often-times
in marches, on picket, in the
trenches, in camps, and in charges, I
22 General Wises Address. [May,
have seen them sad and almost sink ;
but I never saw their tears until their
beloved commander-in-chief ordered
them to surrender their arms. Then
they wept, and many of them broke
their trusty weapons ! The blessed
and ever glorious dead were not there
to surrender, and they are not here
to defend their memories from the
taint of the reproach of rebellion and
treason. Alas ! I am alive and here,
and am bound, at every hazard, to
declare that those men were no re-bels
and no traitors. Let whoever
will swear that they were rebels and
traitors, I will contradict the oath,
and appeal to God on the Holy of
Holies as high as Heaven's throne,
and swear that they were pure pa-triots^
loyal citizens, well tried and
true soldiers, Irave, honest, devoted
men, who proved their faith in their
principles by the deaths which canon-ized
them immortal heroes and mar-tyrs
! No one shall inscribe the epi-taphs
of rebellion and treason upon
the tombs of their dead, without my
burning protest being uttered against
the foul and false profanation. And
if any wounds of the living are label-ed
with rebellion and treason, I
M^ould tear away the infamy though
the wounds should bleed unto death.
If I suffer their names to be dishon-ored
and their glory to be tarnished,
and don't gainsay the reproach, may
my tongue cleave to the roof of my
mouth ; and if I suffer their orphans
to be outcasts for the want of sym-pathy,
warmly outspoken and more
warmly felt, may my right hand for-get
its cunning ! Alas ! in these times
it has no cunning, for it has no coins.
I, too, am a beggar. I can beg, then,
and do beg like a Belisarius, for them.
Please give them one obolus ! Have
you a crumb to spare? Divide it with
them ! Have you comfort, give them.
I implore you, give them some of
your abundance ! Their enemies who
slew their fathers honor them enough
to feed their poor orphans ! They
won't hurt you for daring to do deeds
of charity. Many of them are brave
men, and the brave are always gen-erous
to the brave. The orphan, the
orphan of the poor, the female orphan,
the orphan fallen on evil times, the
Confederate soldier's orphan girl-child,
cry to you ! Will you not heed
their cries and in some way help the
helpless ones ? If you will not, then
may we apostrophize the manes of
their martyred sires, in the lan-guage
of the Lays of the Scottish
Cavaliers :
. . . " Last of Freemen
—
Last of all that dauntless race
Who would rather die unsullied
Than outlive the land's disgrace
—
thou lion-hearted warrior !
Reck not of the after-time :
Honor may be deemed dishonor,
Loyalty be called a crime.
Sleep in peace with kindred ashes
Of the noble and the true,
Hands that never failed their country,
Hearts that never baseness knew !"
But if you will heed and help their
cry, the question then is—How ?
It is to no corporate charity that I
appeal—it is to no charity which
doles merely to indigence—it is to no
charity which gives benefactions only
to the poor. I appeal to a higher, a
more Christian charity, the charity of
active goodness, the doing as well as
the giving charity of good affection,
of earnest, watchful love and tender
kindness. The necessaries of life and
comfort are all wanting and must be
supplied ; but they are nothing com-pared
with the warm, attentive love
and sympathy which administer care-ful,
tender, delicate services, which
remind them not that they are or-phans,
and make them feel that they
have guardians who try to supply the
place of parents and provide a haven,
a safe and sure home, for them on
earth, and thus assure them that thej'-
in common with us have " Our Fa-ther
which art in heaven !" Don't
throw plenty even to them as to the
dogs ; they won't thank you for plen-ty
even, thus given ; but give them
" that manna" which is the "bread
of life !" That it is which Mnll not
only help them to live, but will make
you love to give, so that you as well
as they may live forever. This is
that bread which feedeth him who
freely from the heart giveth it to feed
1866.] General Wise^'s Address. 23
the poor. When he tastes their eat-ing
of it, he shall find it so sweet that
he will give more and more.
We can not feed the poor and nur-ture
their orphans by any " Grad-grind"
system ! Dickens, the Shake-speare
of prose, teaches in Hard
Times the best lessons on that hard-est
of subjects for human hearts to
digest—men's minds can not master
it. It is a subject for the affections,
not for the intellects. We must rely
on individual, active love and good-ness.
Let us try each individual of
every class. Can not all and each of
us here this night resolve that the
single virtue of self-denial alone shall
raise the funds necessary for this
asylum ? Let each individual consti-tute
himself or herself a self-denial's
savings bank for the female orphans
of the poor of Richmond. Let each,
like Theodore, the hermit of Tene-riffe,
take a self- examining view of
the myriads of little monads of habits
which infest our nature, which tangle
our powers, which bother our busi-ness,
which hinder our action, which
beset our steps, which torture our
nerves, which weaken our enei'gies,
which pervert our wills and hearts,
and which, like malicious midges,
divert or distract us from the paths of
pleasantness and of peace. The hab-its
of all cause countless expenses,
unnecessary, wasteful, and extrava-gant.
Let us each and all curb these,
and try watchfully to save from them
the needful for the orphans. I might,
for example, appeal to the man of the
world, and ask him, "head of a
household of high living"—can't he
give up the expenses of one, or two,
or three costly entertainments, taken
from Timon's guests, to feed the or-phans
of Athens ?
I might ask the fashionable matron,
"Have you, madam, no costly weak-nesses
you could make tributary to
the poor orphans of your own sex ?
Come, now, you are amiable. I see
one, two, three little vanities—very
small—very venial, to be sure—so
small there will be no sacrifice—can't
you catch and curb the little monads,
and send them over to the asylum ?
You are nursing them now, and they
will be nursing orphans there.
Fair maiden—fresh, sweet, lovely
lass of lassitude ! How much of
morning and of moonlight do you
titter and tattle away ? How much
to the mantua-maker and the jeweler
the past year ? Can't you spare the
price of one costly trinket ? Come to
an old wizard, and he can tell you a
secret worth more than a necklace of
precious pearls—how to get a troits-seau
for a bride richer than rubies
and brighter than diamonds ! Instead
of laces, it shall be decked with
graces
!
I could scowl from the young-gentleman
at the door of the gamb-ler's
hell a saving from vice. Don't
he go there ? Good. But is there no
other habit he can curtail a penny's
worth for penury's sake?
I might coax even little children to
believe that St. Nicholas might love
them more if they would take a toy
to the baker's for a loaf of love for
the orphans ! I would lure them to
the asylum to play with the little
children, like themselves, and teach
them that joys of loving them are
more precious than toys.
I could beg the poor themselves
—
the fathers and mothers who, though
poor, yet live and love their own
children. They can love and they can
labor. Can't they strike one love-lick
of labor for the orphans of the
poor wdio have died ? Remember
their own cherished infants may soon
need an orphan's home !
I might rally merchants and men
of business ; men of pleasure and pro-fessional
men ; lawyers, doctors, and
mechanics, and the surviving com-rades
of Confederate soldiers—all to
deny, each himself, a morsel to make
up a mighty much of blessed bounty
for the bereft; but such scraping for
crumbs from worldliness, from human
weakness, from vanity and selfish-ness,
and thoughtless indifference
and vice, is below the heavenly theme.
They will or may dole a mite to-day,
but will forget the privilege of giving
again to-morrow ! They will not stop
work, or pleasure, or f\incy, or fash-
24. Agricultural Science. [May,
ion, to count the accumulations of
self-denial, who prize only the income
of self-aggrandizement or the outlays
of self-indulgence ! Tliey can not be
convinced of what glorious and wond-rous
profits of great good a bank of
self-denial's savings will yield to the
corporators themselves, as well as to
the poor beneficiaries of bounty, be-cause
they know not how to count
the rewards of angel-deeds, which, if
they enable us not to ascend to hea-ven,
can bring down heaven to us !
No! orphans, you must look to
Christian charity alone ! To all Christ-ians,
then, and to all the churches I
appeal. To thee, Charity! great-est
of all Christian virtues, I lead
these poor female orphan little ones!
All these orphans are thine ; thou art
the true nursing mother of all ! Take
all by the hand and bless them ; but
nursing mother ! let the poor
female orphan, in these evil times, in
this chill winter of woe, be thy chosen
child ! Take her to thy arms and
press Tier close to thy sweet hosom !
"We are beautifully told in sacred
biogi'aphy that " ease and affluence
generally harden the heart. If it be
well with the selfish man himself, he
little cares what others endure. But
religion teaches another lesson :
' Love
to God, whom we have not seen,' will
always be productive of ' love to men,
whom we have seen.' From the root
of faith many kindred stems spring
up ; and all bring forth fruit. There
arises the stately plant of heavenly-mindedness,
producing the golden
apples of self-governm.ent, self-denial,
and contempt of the world ; and close
by its side, and sheltered by its
branches, gentle sympathy expands
its blossoms and breathe its perfumes
—
consolation to the affdcted and re-lief
to the miserable P'' You have the
"golden apples," whose "sympathy"
expands these blossoms and breathes
these perfumes
!
AGEICULTURAL SCIENCE.
Agriculture is both a science and
an art. Every science, and its de-pendent
art, is a connected system,
linked together by such intimate de-pendencies,
that each must feel the
shock that impedes or impels the
other. All labor, too, which is not
simply undirected physical exertion,
with no other guide than accident or
chance, is but the practical outgoing
of scientific principle, however crude-ly
digested or imperfectly compre-hended
; so that the zealous, earnest
worker in every department is the
true friend and coadjutor of his bi'o-ther
in every other. Art is the pro-genitor
of science; but science, in its
turn, becomes the nurse and guide of
art: science suggests ; art illustrates
and confirms : a principle in the one
is a rule to the other. Science, with-out
the practical demonstrations of
art, is simply theory : art, without
the guidance and control of science,
can not be more than em^nricisni.
Separated, neither can flourish ; but
when united, a mutual interchange
of life and light, like the mild and
gentle radiance of a diffused sun-shine,
scatters warmth and energy
through all the system.
Such is the relation of agricultural
science to agricultural art. One can
not flourish without the othei''; they
are parts of a connected whole ; and
if our country is ever to realize the
highest results of her industrial sys-tem,
the foundation must be laid in
a systematic application of scientific
principles to all the departments of la-bor.
Would you expect a skillful phy-sician
in the man who knows nothing
of the science of medicine, the nature
of disease, or the functions of life ?
Could that surgeon perform a skill-ful
operation who had never studied
the anatomy of the human body ?
The ruined health of all who came
under the treatment of the first
would convict him of quackery ; and
the mangled bodies of those who
submitted to the knife of the sec-
5.] Agricultural Science. 25
ond, would demonstrate that he was
only a licensed butcher. And what
would the wasted hillsides, the
vrashed and gullied ravines, and the
barren fields of the South say for
the tillers of our soil,? But this
must always be the case when sci-ence
and art are divorced ; both must
suffer from the unnatural estrange-ment.
Indeed, it may be asserted, not
only of every particular science and
its dependent art, but of the entire
sisterhood of science and art, that
each is the assistant and handmaid
of every other. It is the astronomer
who instructs the merchant in what
path to carry his freighted wealth
over the trackless ocean ; and if he
toils through anxious days and
nights to correct, by a single sec-ond,
the record of his former calcu-lations,
it is that the hardy sailor
may attain an equal accuracy in
avoiding the perils of the deep : on
the other hand, the astronomer is
not less indebted to the artisan, who
constructed his instruments, to the
optician, who has expounded the
laws of light, and to the chemist,
who has taught him the nature and
composition of his lenses. If the
science of geology instructs the farm-er
relative to the source and origin
of his soils, or the miner concerning
the nature and locality of his ores,
or the geogi'apher as to the causes of
mountain ranges and the configura-tion
of land and sea; in return, the
whole range of art and science pour
their accumulated treasures into the
lap of geology. So, too, the science
of agriculture, contributing not mere-ly
to this or that department of la-bor,
but, by the production of food
and raiment, ministering at the very
fountain of life itself, may be re-garded
as the foundation and sup-port
of all. But, if upon it all are
dependent, so with reciprocal gene-rosity
and kindness to it, all contrib-ute
the offering of their peculiar
treasures. The botanist brings to his
aid a knowledge of the habits and
functions of the vegetable which the
farmer cultivates ; the zoologist in-structs
him in the nature and wants
of the animals he emplo3rs for food
or service ; the entomologist enlight-ens
him relative .to the changes and
habits of the insects Avhich prey
upon his crops ; the mineralogist and
geologist tell him of the origin and
general properties of his soil ; the
meteorologist and astronomer in-struct
him as to his times and sea-sons
; while chemistrj^ his special
ally and friend, is associated with all
he does, and must, of necessity, be
the ground-work of whatever monu-ment
shall be erected to agricultural
science in all coming time. By it
his soils are to be analyzed, his ma-nures
composted, his crops furnished
with suitable nutriment, the ele-ments
of air and earth made tributa-ry
to his purposes.
What has already been accom-plished
for agriculture by the science
of chemistrjr, we can scarcely fully
comprehend. Imagine the alchem-ist
of a former age, searching for the
seeds of the metals which he main-tained
were to be found in the earth,
and the foliage and flowers of which
he fancied that he saw in the crystal-line
structure of some of the native
ores, and we get a glimpse of the
darkness which chemistry has dis-pelled
from the region of organic
life. Imagine even Aristotle, that
prince of philosophers, whose theo-ries
ruled with such an iron despot-ism,
for so many years, over the
hearts and minds of men, gravely
maintaining that fire, air, water, and
earth were the sole original elements
of matter, and that these were form-ed
from "primary qualities," as fire
from "heat and dryness," air from
" heat and' moisture," water from
" cold and moisture," and earth from
" cold and dryness," and we see
something of the jargon from which
agricultural science has been rescued
by the helping hand of the analytic
chemist. These are general results.
What then, more definitely, has
agricultural science accomplished for
agricultural art ?
In the first place, it has removed
an immense burden of prejudice
26 Agricultural Science. [May,
and superstition. Nothing offers a
more formidable barrier to progress
of any kind than the prejudices of
the human mind. But chemistry, by
appealing to the understanding, and
demonstrating its teachings by sim-ple
experiments divested of all com-plexit}^^
has rendered nature's re-sponses
clear and intelligible ; has
disarmed the mind of its prejudices,
and started it actively upon a new
career of intelligent and rational
progress.
He who had once seen the beauti-ful
experiment by which water is re-solved,
through galvanic agency, into
its gaseous components, and these
same gases recomposed again into
w^ater, could no longer dream of
"primary qualities," or of "cold
and moisture," as the constituent
elements of this useful and common
article. And when Lavoisier had
separated oxygen from the air by
an equally simple and convincing-process,
it was natural, perhaps,
that this singular substance, invisi-ble,
combustible, powerful in all its
affinities, should have suggested to
the mind vague impressions of ghosts
that fill the air, and that with it the
whole class of bodies to which it be-longs
should have been called gas,
(gast or ghost, as the word originally
signified,) but it was now no longer
possible to hold to the doctrine of an
elcmentar^r body composed of " heat
and moisture." The most inveterate
prejudices must eventually yield to
the stern logic of fticts, and it is the
peculiar province of chemistry to ap-peal
to focts, to submit all her teach-ings
to experimental tests in which
the problem to be solved is referred
directly to nature herself. And
thus, inch by inch, reason and ex-periment
have triumphed over ig-norance,
till the old prejudice against
"scientific farming" as distinguish-ed
from "practical farming" is fast
passing awa}^ and the good sense of
our people is convincing them that
all true science and all true prac-tice
are alike based upon principles
derived from experience and observa-tion.
Practice that is false is unsci-entific
; and science that contradicts
correct practice is untrue. The prac-tical
man, if he succeeds, must suc-ceed
on the principles of true sci-ence,
however he may have attained
it ; and the scientific man teaches
only a partial or a false philosophy,
if he does not confirm successful
practice. To array one correct
principle against another, and call
it science is a misnomer. We have
heard of the clerical former who, ar-guing
most logically from an unques-tioned
principle in the nature of the
animal, concluded that if he would
introduce his hogs into his potato
patch, they would root up the grass
Avhich had become troublesome. Of
course he was not disappointed; the
grass was rooted up—and the pota-toes
also. Another, with equal phi-losophic
acuteness, knowing that the
proper place for seeds to germinate
is in the ground, is said to have care-fully
uprooted and inverted all his
garden beans, because they came up
with the bean attached to the wrong
end. This may be poetry ; it is cer-tainl}^
not science ; and it is well
that our " practical " and " scienti-fic"
formers have ceased to dispute
about their respective merits; for it
will be admitted that, in all such
cases as the above, the "science" is
at least as good as the "practice."
Superstition is closely allied to
prejudice; the mind deeply imbued
with the one, is always a mind ob-stinately
affected by the other, and
the two evils so interlace that they
are not always separable. Super-stition
suggests an opinion, and this
opinion, held without reason, and
often against reason, becomes the
basis of an inveterate prejudice,
which is the more incurable because
it pretends to no rational support.
Chemistry, by inducing a habit of
careful analysis, gradually under-mines
those superstitions, and being
led along in the sure path of clear
inductive reasoning, with the firm
foothold of intellectual conviction to
rest upon at every step, the mind
first doubts, then suspects, and fin-ally
discards every thing that can
1866.] Agricultural Science. 27
not stand the test of the retort and
crucible. "What agriculturist thus
trained in the school of science
would blame the phases of the
moon, or the conjunction of the
planets, for the failure of his crop
of potatoes and turnips ? We plant
in the earth, not in the moon, and
if we fail
—
" The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But ill ourselves."
But the prevalence of some of
these fallacies entitles them to a
more serious attention than a mere-ly
passing notice. They have taken
hold largely of the popular mind,
and in so far as they influence pop-ular
action, have become, to that ex-tent,
a public calamity.
True, some progress has been
made. The sage prediction of
"Look-for-rain-about-this-time," ex-tending
from the top of the page to
the bottom, in our old almanacs, is
fast losing its ancient prestige, and
the poor old man who has stood for
so many years transfixed by darts
from head to foot, on the first page,
is likely to escape from his tortures
in these more Christian times. The
constellations have nearly ceased to
pour their baleful light upon his de-voted
head ; but the gentle, quiet
moon, and a few of our sister plan-ets,
have not entirely ceased to work
their spells and charms upon the
earth.
Moonlight, we are told, in a few
hours will produce decay in fish
freshly caught from the stream, and
thrown upon the bank. Turnips
should be sown, potatoes planted,
meat killed, soap made —in a word,
almost every thing should be done
according to some phase of the moon,
whilst, on the other hand, almost
every thing she does portends some
change in the economy of nature. If
she runs far north, it will be cold ; if
she lies on her back when new, the
month will be dry ; with each of her
changes, there will be a change of
weather ; and if, perchance, she
should come into conjunction with
one or more of the planets, or they
with each other, something more
than usually remarkable must occur
in the heavens or earth to signalize
the event.
Now, as to all these atmospheric
changes, it ought to be sufficient
simply to suggest that the moon, in
her night walk through the sky,
is guided by immutable laws, which
have never changed since the world
began, and from which she will never
deviate till the crack of doom. By
these laws the astronomer can trace
her path with all her changes, dur
ing every second of time to the re-motest
ages. But the "wind blow-eth
where it listeth," and who can
tell what changes of heat or cold,
wet or dry, sunshine or storm, a
single hour may produce ? Nothing
can be more constant or certain than
the movements of the moon — noth-ing
more fickle or uncertain than the
changes of the weather ; and how,
then, can we hope to trace between
them any relations of cause and ef-fect?
As to the influence of the moon's
light, it ought to suflice to say that
the moon's light is only reflected
sunlight, just such as falls upon us
from every object around us on the
earth ; it has no mystic charm.
Earth-shine is just as good as moon-shine.
In fact, moonlight is pecu-liarly
unfitted for working wonders
of any kind ; for, owing to the ab-sorption
of its heat by the atmos-phere
through which it comes to us,
it is impossible to detect the smallest
trace of calorific power in the most
concentrated moon-beam ; it is a
cold, dead, sepulchral light, that has
lost even the life-giving power which
it had in common with other sun-beams
when it started from the par-ent
source. Then how can the so-called
changes of the moon, which
only means that more or less of her
illuminated surface is exposed to
view, effect any thing ? The moon
can not change. It is the same
moon now that it was four thousand
years ago, when watched by shep-herds
on the plains of Ohaldea ; it
28. Agricultural Science. [May,
never waxes nor wanes except in ap-pearance.
The full moon is no larger
than the new moon ; it remains un-changeably
the same dull, earthy
mattei", covered with cliffs and vol-canic
craters, probably without air
or water, and unable to sprout a tur-nip
even upon its own rugged and
barren surface.
How absurdly, then, does it claim
to wield an almost boundless power
over the productions and every thing
else on this distant world of ours
!
Truly, one would scarcely have sus-pected
such a " busybody in other
men's matters" in this same quiet,
gentle moon, stealing so softly across
the midnight sky.
But we are gravely told that the
attraction of the moon causes the
tides, and if the mighty ocean
heaves and swells beneath her sway,
why may not these other things
upon the earth ? We answer, simply
because they are otlier things, and
entirely different things ; and for
that very reason require other agen-cies
and powers to effect the pro-posed
result. If the moon, in com-mon
with all other bodies in the
universe, has the power of attract-ing
matter, and thus drawing up
the water of the ocean into tides,
does it follow that therefore it can
do every thing else— make turnips
and potatoes as well as soap — con-trol
and direct the seasons, and send
us hoar-frost at its pleasure ? Strange
philosophy that
!
But our honest farmer might have
easily multiplied cases of lunar in-fluence,
far more striking than even
the ocean tides, and certainly more
philosophic than soap-making, if he
had adhered to the results of univer-sal
gravitation, of which the tides
are only a particular example.
Through this all-pervading princi-ple
of attraction, possessed by the
moon in common with all other
matter, she lays her mighty hand
upon the solid earth itself, and
swings him to and fro in his orbit
;
and by the same far-reaching power
extends her sceptre, though with a
milder sway, through all the host
of heaven, ascending through the
ranks of suns and systems to the
utmost bounds of the universe of
God. This the moon may do be-cause
it is her legitimate domain,
the common office of all dead mat-ter
; but science must protest, with
all due deference to her queenly ma-jesty,
against usurped authority and
juggling arts.
But, it may be asked, if all this
popular belief about the moon is
erroneous, how can it be accounted
for that so many intelligent practical
men are thus deceived, seeing that
it is a practical matter, appealing to
every day's expei'ience, and in a
manner, too, most intimately affect-ing
their personal interests ? Such
misjudgments are not at all surpris-ing
; they are perfectly natural ; it
has been so in all ages. Man is a
religious as well as an intellectual
being. He not only seeks for the
reason of things, but when the light
of reason fails him, and he finds
some power external to himselt
working results he can not compre-hend,
his instincts incline him to
ascribe these results to some myste-rious
influence residing somewhere
in nature. On this principle, the
sun, moon, and stars have in all
past time been objects of religious
homage to the ignorant. The whole
class of soothsayers and aruspices of
the Greeks and Komans belong to
this same category. The j^ounger
Cyrus, just before the fatal battle in
which he lost his life, and in which
were blasted all the hopes of his de-voted
followers, publicly announced
to his assembled army that his sooth-sayers
had examined the entrails of
the sacrifices, and that all the omens
were favorable. The aruspex was
the high-priest of the religion of a
whole people, who could appeal to
their daily experience to prove that
the quivering entrails of a butchered
victim unmistakably foreshadowed
the fate of battles and the destiny
of men and nations. The croak of
the raven, the flight of birds, the
path of the meteor, were all portents
of good or evil.
1866.] Agricultural Science. 29
Now, how is it that the learned
and philosophic Greek, as well as
the practical and astute Roman,
could for so many ages appeal to
his unquestioned experience, in de-fense
of the truth and practices of
an art, the absurdity of which is
now too gross even to deserve a seri-ous
refutation ? The ancient sooth-saj'^
er was deceived, just as the mod-ern
moon-man is deceived ; both
loosely observed the facts, and more
looseljr reasoned from their premises,
rejecting every thing which bore not
in the direction of their preconceived
theories ; and as their facts proved
nothing either waj^, like negative char-acters
generally, they were only the
more easily distorted into any shape
the required argument might demand.
What shall we say then ? Does
human testimony go for naught?
By no means. But the opinions of
those whose habits of observation
are loose and superficial, and the ob-servations
themselves scattered and
accidental, should weigh but little in
the scale against those whose whole
Hfe has been devoted specially to the
subject under discussion. Which,
for instance, should be received as
most reliable, the crude opinions of
the common observer, based only
upon isolated phenomena of nature,
or the whole body of astronomers,
whose life-long studies especially fit
them for analyzing the facts, and
who have not only their own obser-vations
to guide them, but have also,
in their observatories, the carefully
collated records of centurieSj by
other men, equally devoted to the
questions in dispute ?
Do jo\x ask what these learned
astronomers, after all their accumu-lated
and laborious research, have
concluded ? Why, simply this, that
thejr find absolutely no certain traces
of effects from lunar changes in all
the records of their observatories.
Theoretically, it might have been
supposed that there M'ould be a
slight decrease of rain during the
brighter phases of the moon, be-cause
the moonbeams must contain
heat, in common with all other light
originating from the sun, and as this
heat never reaches the earth, but is
absorbed by our atmosphere, it might
be supposed that its absorption M'ould,
to an appreciable extent, dissipate the
clouds that otherwise might have
fallen in showers.
Theoretically, also, we might have
expected that the lunar attraction, by
producing tides in the air, as it does
upon the ocean, would have sensibly
affected the condition of our weather —not monthly, as the popular im-pression
would require, but like the
tides of the ocean, daily, and even
twice per day. But no such expec-tations
have been realized. These
effects, if they are produced at all,
are obliterated by other causes, or
are so insignificant as to be lost
among the errors of observation.
In fact, if any difference in the
weather regularly occurs during the
month, the evidence, from carefully
comparing the records, points only
to a time between the first half-moon
and the full—the second octant—
a
time not indicated either by popular
credulity or any known scientific
principle. The evidence in favor of
this period is indeed very slight,
only a small fraction of an inch in
barometric pressure—too small to
be detected by any other method
than that of appealing to a long-con-tinued
record of facts, carefully made
and accurately analyzed ; but still
the evidence, small as it is, seems to
have some force, for it is consistent
and all the lines converge to the same
point. One set of observations upon
the number of rainy days ; another
upon the number of cloudy days
;
and a third upon the indications of
the barometer, all point to the sec-ond
octant of the moon as the period
of most rain. Why it should be so,
if indeed it reallj^ is, neither science
nor popular opinion pretends to de-cide—
it is purely an induction from
recorded facts. These facts show no
other change.
Then are we to conclude that all
the facts alleged in favor of these
popular beliefs are erroneous, merelj''
creatures of the imagination? Not
30 Agricultural Science. [May,
at all. The Aicts are sometimes
facts, but the poor moon is not to
blame if they are. It may be, for
instance, true, and no doubt is, that
fish or any other kind of flesh will
spoil sooner on a bright moonlight
night than when it is cloudj' ; but
only because the dew is heavier on
such nights, and the moisture, as
well as the gases absorbed by dew,
greatly facilitates decomposition. So,
too, in regard to the germinating of
seeds; the dew, and not the moon
or the moon's light, must be held re-sponsible,
if there be a difference :
any clear, still night which favors the
deposition of dew would do as well.
Again, it is certainly true that
when the full moon runs far north
the temperature of the M^eather will
more probably be cold than when it'
is far south ; but the simple reason
is, that the first never occurs except
in winter, and the second only dur-ing
summer; for when the moon is
full it must alwaj^s be in the oppo-site
part of the heavens from the
sun, and as the sun runs far south
in winter, the full moon of necessity
runs far north ; there is only a coin-cidence,
but no connection between
the phenomena of cold and the
moon's position.
But surely, it is urged, the moon
does afi'ect the diseases of the human
family ; for lunacy and epilepsy de-monstrate
the fact, and even the
great Lord Bacon always fiiinted
when the moon was eclipsed. If
the great Bacon had faith enough in
the moon to allow a superstitious
dread to disturb his shattered
nerves, it only proves, what the
world has long known, that even
great men often have weak points.
We admit that there is a tendency
in the animal system to return, at
regular intervals, after a series of
changes, to the same physical state.
This tendency is common to man
and brute, to male and female, and
we have no doubt that these recur-ring
changes modify disease. The
period itself may coi'respond very
nearly to a month, as we know in
some cases it actually does, or it
may include only a few days, as in
the case of intermittent fevers ; but
whether it be one month or one day,
it in no sense can be caused by any
peculiar phase of the moon. It
would be as rational to insist that
the third da3'^'s sun caused the ter-tian
fever, as to hold that the thirty
daj^s' moon produced the epilepsy.
How fanciful, too, is the impression
that pork killed during the decrease
of the moon will shrink awaj'', while
that slaughtered during the increase
will not. Is it the argument from
analogy that carries such convincing
power to the popular mind on this
point—^^that as the moon is waning,
therefore the meat must wane ? But
the moon waxes, also, and then what
a happy thought it would be, during
these times of pressure, when corn is
scarce, and hogs have already waned
quite enough, to bu}'- up large sup-phes
of meat and slaughter it when
the moon's waxing process is in full
tide ! Such a speculation would be
Avorthy of a down-east Yankee. But,
perchance, we have missed the argu-ment,
and it is, that our veritable
porker has heard that the great Lord
Chancellor himself was accustomed
to swoon away at the changes of the
moon, and that, therefore, all true
'hacon should do likewise ; we know
it is said that there is a loyal branch
of this Bacon family down East,
whose hams, (wooden,) defying all
precedent in heaven or earth, obsti-nately
refuse either to wax or wane.
But be that as it may, the argument
is at least as good as it was before,
for we w'ould prefer for ourselves, in
so grave a question as that of meat
and bread, some more sure reliance
than a vague analogy to rest upon ;
and even if shut up to the necessity
of an analogical argument, we would
prefer to draw our analogy from a
waning corn-crib rather than a wan-ing
moon.
What, then, can be the cause of
the undisputed fact that our hams of
bacon do sometimes shrink away ?
Two causes may be assigned. First,
the character of the food that made
the bacon ; and second, the unhealthy
1866.] Agricultural Science. 31
condition of the animal that digested
the food. Every intelligent former
ought to know that the different por-tions
of the flesh of animals are com-posed
of different elements, and that
appropriate food to supply these ele-ments
is necessary. The solid parts,
for instance, such as muscles and
sinews, must contain nitrogen, and
in the absence of food which can sup-ply
this necessity, no muscle can be
formed, or if the supply is only
partial the result will correspond.
Would you expect a stout, muscular,
hardy animal to result from feeding
upon turnips alone, as well as if corn,
wheat, and peas were added ? The
child fed upon arrowroot may have a
round, plump limb, but it is com-posed
of soft, cellular, fatty matter,
which would shrink away far sooner
than the solid muscular development
of the laboring man. And if, in the
second place, any morbid, unhealthy
action in the vital functions should
cause a development of a soft, cellu-lar,
unsound flesh, of course the same
result would follow. So with our
bacon.
But we will pursue our fickle and
inconstant neighbor, the moon, no
further. We have thus fully con-sidered'
her powers and capabilities
in order the more efficiently to pro-test
against the unauthorized manner
in which she has hitherto interfered
with the business of our farmers.
We will now dismiss her ladyship,
hoping that in future she may be
permitted quietly to confine her at-tention
at home to the "man in the
moon," and that no more of his pro-geny
may be colonized in this far-oflf
world of ours ; and that our people,
thus left to themselves, may seek to
develop their own resources, and
promote the best interests of the
"land we love."
We have been discussing diffi-culties
in the way of agricultural
pi'ogress. To return more directly
to a consideration of the science of
agriculture itself, we would insist
that this is now one of the great ne-cessities
of the South. Our young
men should be taught its elements
in the primary schools, its practical
details on the model farm, and tho-roughly
grounded in all its scientific
principles at the college and univer-sity.
If to secure the greatest good,
not only to the greatest number, but
the highest interests of all, is a safe
principle for the guidance of nations
or communities, surelj'' that pursuit
which is to engage the personal at-tention
of nine tenths of our people,
and upon which the remainder must
depend for bread, deserves special
attention. If we would not have our
sons and daughters to be merel}' au-tomatons
going the round of a tread-mill
process, our people must now
aM^ake to the reality of their situa-tion.
Labor—personal, manual la-bor—
is now a necessitj'-, and to re-lieve
it from the servility of mere
routine drudgery—to elevate it to
the character and tone of our South-ern
society, it must not be simply
machine-work ; it must be a culti-vated,
intellectual pursuit—one that
enlists all the warmth of the South-ern
heart and all the energies of the
Southern head. And why not ?
The farmer stands in the very work-shop
of nature herself He is the
assistant chemist in the laboratory,
where the great Master chemist, by
his reagents and solvents, is m.eta-morphosing
t?ie gross materials of
our barn-yards and compost heaps
into beautiful fruits and flowers, and
converting the dull earth of our mea-dows
into luxuriant fields of wheat
and corn. And shall he stand by,
amid these scenes of curious and
wonderful phenomena, and look on
only M'ith a stupid vacant stare, as
one would gaze at the handicraft of
a juggler whose tricks he could not
understand, and of whose science he
knows nothing ? Or should he not
rather, by fitting himself for an intel-ligent
cooperation, take hold of the
chemicals himself, and assist in the
performance of the grand experiments
going on around him ? How is this
to be accomplished without the ne-cessary
preparatory training ? It
can not be. Then let our Southern
education be remodeled to meet the
32 A^icultural Science. [May,
demands of the times ; let our schools,
academies, colleges, and universities
recognize the changes that have come
over our people. It must be so, or
we must lose the high preeminence
vre have gained for thorough intelli-gence
upon all subjects engaging our
attention, as well as for that sterling
common-sense by which an enlight-ened
people should always accommo-date
themselves to the necesssties
that surround them. "\Ye would not
abandon the classic fields of Greece
and Rome, nor neglect to cultivate the
gentle slopes of Helicon and Parnas-sus
; we would neglect nothing ele-vating,
purifying, and refining, in all
that has contributed to our character
as a people in the past ; but, pre-serving
that character intact, we
would engraft upon it our new con-dition,
and, by the process of a vital
digestion, assimilate all its elements
to the true Southern type.
Why should not agriculture, the
great business of our people, be thus
ennobled and dignified by a special
and suitable scholastic preparation?
Can there be any position in life in
which the refining and pleasure-giv-ing
influences of knowledge are more
needed to relieve the mind and cheer
the heart, than among the hardy,
earnest, toil-worn children of the
farm ? Or can there be any pursuit
which has more practical connec-tions
with other branches of know-ledge
than the cultivation of the soil ?
We have already pointed out some
of the sources of knowledge tributary
to this calling, and the list might ea-sily
be so extended as to demonstrate
that, instead of the neglect it re-ceives,
the science of agriculture, b}^
its intimate dependence upon so wide
a range of human learning, is entitled,
as few other pursuits can be, to be
lifted from tiie low level of a mechan-ic
art to the high dignity of a learn-ed
profession.
This change is now practic^^ble.
Under a former s^^stcm when our
3'oung men had but little to do, b}''
a precocious hot-house culture, their
primary training in academies and
colleges was necessarily too hurried
;
time was not allowed for laying the
foundation sufficiently broad or deep.
Now it is different. The necessity
for attending to business details and
assisting in all the duties of flimily
economj^, will put a wholesome check
upon the railroad speed of our edu-cational
system, and allow time and
opportunity for inculcating not only
the elements of an agricultural edu-cation,
but for converting every fire-side
and country farm into a practi-cal
school for agricultural science.
The universities of Europe impose a
course of stud}^ requiring for its
completion the time of their students
till they become from twenty-five to
thirtj'' 3'ears old ; and could we not,
in even less time, accomplish all that
is trul}'' excellent in our curriculum,
and engraft upon it, in addition, these
new features, so eminentlj^ required
by the times, and so easil}'' appli-cable,
now that our young men will
be in the daily practice, at home, of
the principles illustrated in the teach-er's
laboratory at school '? That agri-culture
can be successfully^ introduced
and taught even in the primary
school, is no longer a speculation.
More than twenty years ago three
thousand Irish schools adopted the
system, and the Scotch about the
same time followed their example.
Two or three hours per week devoted
to the children of a class, produced
results that astonished and gratified
all who witnessed them. These fevf
hours, with the aid of such an ele-mentary
book as Johnston's " Cate-chism
of Agricultural Chemistry,"
and a few simple illustrative experi-ments
suggested by the author him-self,
such as any intelligent teacher
could easily repeat, are all that is re-quired
at this stage of the instruc-tion.
A higher development will re-quire
a systematic home training, or
a model farm, under the aye of the
pupil, to test the accurac}' of iiis sci-entific
principles ; while a scientific
school, attached to our regular col-leges,
and taught by the professors
of the regular facult}^ could carry on
the work to a tolerable degree of per-fection.
The bias given to the mind
1866.J Agricultural Science. 33
in youth generally directs, the whole
current of life ; and a taste for agri-cultural
pursuits, thus engr