Excerpt from On a Proper Education for an Agricultural People: Delivered American Institute of Instruction, Boston, August, 1835
Though I am to regard the agricultural population, I must of course involve the principles on which all classes are to be educated. For the points at which all men unite are far more numerous than those at which particular classes of men are divided. I shall not allow myself to forget my appropriate subject, and shall as specially as possible confine myself to it; but I shall do my work very badly, if with all its speciality, its great principle shall not be found applicable to people of every class.
There is another light in which my limit seems no limit - in which I may consider myself as speaking for the people at large. In all countries, and especially our own, the agricultural people is the people. Magnify as we may each other interest, - commercial, manufacturing, - they form but small fractions of the mass - themselves proceeding from, and intimately bound to, the agricultural population, and receiving their character from it. Increase our manufactures and commerce as we must, they can never employ a tythe of the community. Our increasing millions must be chiefly agricultural, forming the nation, and governing the nation. Yes - governing the nation. In all countries, and especially our own, weight is in numbers. The agricultural population do and will, directly or indirectly, govern the country. The farmers will regulate or distract manufactures or commerce - will secure or disturb our civil polity. If they originate no governmental acts, when they do but act or decline acting upon propositions of good or evil, their decisions form the issue of every proposal.
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