Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 February 1879 — Educated Farmers. [ARTICLE]

Educated Farmers.

I hope that the day will some time come when our Congress w’ill be made up more largely from the agricultural class, for the larger the percentage of rejiresentation herein by persons engaged in practical agriculture the more liberal will be the policies of the Government in respect of it. Why farmers are thus set aside and do not rule Congress is thus explained: It is because farmer’s are satisfied with giving to their children only inferior education, when it is apparent that of all youths of the land they should receive the most careful training, the most thorough and the most general instruction. The practical agriculturist requires a knowledge of economical chemistry, of botany, of physiology, of entomology, of physics, and of engineering; for all these maybe brought into requisition in farm management. He should be learned in political economy, in the rules and usages and requirements of commerce and of trade and of finance, because the interests of his great-country are closely connected with them all, and by his own knowledge of the exact relationship of each to the other he should be able to protect these interests when they may be imperiled by legislation having for its object the special protection and advancement of some particular industry oravocatioia without due regard for the effect thereof upon agriculture. He should be learned in law in order that he may be able to understand and defend his right of property when threatened. He should give attention to literature and to philosophy. Finally, he should be conspicuously cultured, mentally disciplined, enlightened and refined, because our civilization demands it, because his class—being the largest and most interested in the property of the country, and therefore the safest of all—should lead in affairs, and this it cannot do until those who compose it are qualified to take an exalted place at the head of the column of progress to which otherwise they would be entitled, —Senator Paddock, of Nebraska.