In one of the morning journals, we perceive that the example of Prussia is adduced as one which we ought to follow in providing public instruction in agriculture. Prussia has, it is said, five agricultural colleges, besides ten schools of a more elementary character. She has seven schools to teach the cultivation of flax, two for showing how meadow-lands should be managed, one for instructing boys in the care of sheep, and forty-five model farms. We are asked to make Prussia our pattern in this matter, and the next legislature of the State of Mew-York is to be pestered with plans for raising money to endow agricultural colleges.

In Prussia everything is done by the government. The government founds and regulates the universities as well as the common schools; the government provides for religious instruction, for the building of churches and the appointment and sustenance of the clergy. It does all this without asking the leave of the people; not for the reason that the people would not provide as well by voluntary arrangements for their own spiritual and literary instruction, but partly because it desires to nave all the institutions of education, of every sort, in its own hands, in order that the pupils may be trained up in such a manner as to make quiet subjects of an absolute government; and, in the next place its policy is to keep the people from engaging in public enterprises of any kind. For all undertakings which bear the least resemblance to political transactions, for every institution, of any kind, which has any influence on public opinion, the people are taught to look to the government. The government teaches; the people learn and obey - public business is made to the mass a mystery with the transaction of which they are not to intermeddle, nor presume to discuss.

This is the sort of government whose acts are held up to the State of New York as an example. We are to go on, if this class of politicians are allowed to manage our affairs, accumulating all manner of cares upon the government till the government agency has everywhere supplanted individual enterprise and activity, as it has in Prussia.

If agricultural schools are wanted in this state, if there is any better institution for teaching how to take care of sheep, and manage meadow lands, than the farm of one of our intelligent yeomen, there is none, the establishment of which by voluntary enterprise, is so easy. Any man who understands practical agriculture, with such a knowledge of the auxiliary sciences as are necessary for the present improved modes of cultivation, might establish a school, in which the pupils would pay for their instruction by certain stated service, which of themselves would advance their progress in the arts of tillage and husbandry. Agricultural schools would, in this way, be the most economical of all, ana the scholar would be trained up, without expense, to the highest degree of practical expertness, accompanied with a competent degree of theoretical knowledge.

In this manner model farms might be established in every county. If there is a real demand for agricultural instruction in a formal shape, how does it happen that we have no institutions of this kind already established? If the demand for them was urgent and the people impatient, institutions on the frugal basis we . have mentioned, would be founded all over the country.

The "only conclusion to which we can arrive is, that there is as yet no call among the agricultural population for the schools which the politicians who hold that the government is to do everything, wish to rive them. When such a call is made, there will be hundreds of enterprising individuals prepared to offer agricultural schools on the voluntary system.

We are somewhat surprised to see the common-place view of agricultural education taken by the editors of the Post. We commend to their attention the Report of the Massachusetts Agricultural School Commissioners of last January.

A perusal of Professor Hitchcock's very able report on the various Agricultural Schools of Europe, inspected by him personally, will, we think, change their views. Prof. H. states, that the history of the Agricultural Schools of Europe teaches conclusively, that Agricultural Schools usually fail, If they do not receive efficient aid from the government. Also, that when the government takes exclusive control of the schools, (as in Prussia,) the people usually take little interest in them. And lastly, he tells us that "thoee agricultural institutions suc* teed best which are started and sustained by the mutual effort* and contributions of individuals, or societiest and of the government".

The plain reason why some government assistance is needed is, that one of the principal objects is to try experiments - in order to ascertain the utility or worthlessness of supposed discoveries and improvements. Now a private school may be able to carry on a good system of farming - but a private school will always do what is most for the private interest of its principal to do - which is to raise only the most profitable crops - and not waste money in experiments. There are many branches of knowledge that would be highly useful for a young fanner living in a wheat district, to learn, that a private farm-school in a grazing district would not find It to its interest to teach; and there would be many branches of knowledge that the young farmer should acquire, which the limited means (as to teachers, apparaturs, lectures, etc.) of the private school, could not compass - and in all tbese points the government would properly come in to the aid of the school. On the other hand, the young agricultural pupil should not he wholly supported and educated by the state - but should be obliged to pay something, either in money or labor, or both - in order that he may feel that he has a direct interest in the maintenance of the institution.

It is, undoubtedly, but too true, that the mass of the farmers feel but little interest in agricultural education. But so it is with the masses in every calling at first. The few more intelligent, feel and see the evils of ignorance and the value and power of knowledge, and it is the few who always organise any such institutions. The common school system, which everybody recognizes as the great institution of this country, was not called for by the mass of the people - it was urged upon them with difficulty by a few of the more enlightened minds of the country. Its value once demonstrated, the people look with horror upon the mental darkness of an uneducated nation. So, if the value of agricultural, mechanical, and scientific schools could be once fairly demonstrated to the masses, they would at once be adopted, universally, as right sources of power and influence and wealth - in the same way as the printing press and the post office are so adopted. There can be no more real question about the value of special education to the farmer or the mechanic, in a republic, than there is of the value to these men, of the thinking faculty itself.

If there is anything in agriculture or mechanics that makes any demand upon the thinking faculties of man, then those thinking faculties should be recognised and educated in the best manner for their special function. If there is not, why then let the brutes take the sole charge of the farms and workshops - it is idle for intelligent human beings to waste their time and talents there. The truth lies in a nutshell. Either farming is an intelligent occupation and demands e4ucation, or it is not, and demands only brute force. Take which ever form of the dilemma you choose - farmers, editors, legislators!