Now, it is very probable that if such an every-day boy had been permitted to pursue some track for which his inclinations qualified him, instead of being limited to a course of unsuitable and distasteful occupations, he might have acquired useful knowledge of some sort. For example, supposing him to stumble at metrical "longs and shorts," or to be stuck between the horns of a dilemma, or be lost amidst the mazes of metaphysics, he might have that peculiar turn which would render him a good farmer, an excellent judge of "long and short wools" or of "long and short horns," or that shrewdness which would render him a clever tradesman, a man "Who knows what's what, and that's as high As metaphysic wit doth fly." And so certain am I that many young men who enter our university would prefer and far better comprehend the plain and practical lecture of a professor of agriculture, surrounded by models of machinery and plates of cattle, &c., than lectures of a far more pretending character, that I cannot avoid lamenting the deficiency in the department of agriculture which Socrates designated "the nurse and mother of all the arts," and Gibbon "the foundation of all manufactures." The example afforded in this respect by the University of Edinburgh is worthy of the imitation of Trinity College. To afford at least the opportunities of gaining such information on this subject as the mind may be capable of receiving or predisposed to receive, cannot but be deemed judicious. And the theoretical knowledge of husbandry is incalculably more needed by the gentry and middle classes of Ireland than by those of the same grades in Scotland, where almost every land-proprietor and farmer understands the subject more or less. Far be it from me to decry the advantages of what is called learning, but I would have a more diversified course, both in our schools _of every class_, and in the universities, so as to comprehend those useful branches of information, to which the student, if denied by Providence the faculties requisite for the attainment of others, may apply himself with pleasure or advantage. I have met with many young persons of exceeding dullness in _book learning_, of decided distaste to the pursuits of _literature_, who have manifested a quick apprehension of _mechanical contrivances_, practically exhibited a love of natural history, of gardening, of agriculture, of something, in short, of a utilitarian character. If these tendencies had been duly cultivated, the results would have been favourable to the individuals themselves, and probably to the public also.