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of natui'e was pronounced in orgies which the pen now refuses to 

 describe; their highest aim the development of the athlete in qualities 

 now chiefly prized in the thoroughbred. This development may have 

 been necessary when the pressing ambition of chiefs, and the perpetual 

 bickering of States, made every man a soldier; when weapons were 

 rude; when power of arm to cast the spear, and fleetnesa of foot to 

 advance or retreat, gave victory or retrieved disaster. Our civilization 

 has a nobler meaning, founded on universally diffused intelligence. We 

 recognize the power that knowledge has in enabling man to master 

 nature; guiding its immense energies to labor in his service, freeing his 

 mind from superstitions, and creating beauty and prosperity in manifold 

 forms in our broad commonwealths. Look around you, and see the result 

 of enlightened industry. Look out into the world for the effects of that 

 inventive development which has seized on the wildest forces of nature, 

 as steam and lightning, and taught the one to labor in the workshop, 

 field, and mine ; to draw the loaded car, or plough the deep with swift 

 obedience ; and the other to flash intelligence across oceans, and circle 

 the earth, pregnant with thought. The rude forces that once spoke only 

 in terror to man, enfeebling his mind with their awful maniiestations, 

 seemingl}' the work of subtle and fiendish spirits, now calmly labor in 

 his service. His intellectual nature is emancipated, and vindicates its 

 mastership over all earthly created things ; for intelligence has allured 

 these invisible and impalpable agencies to the use of man, adding to his 

 industrial strength beyond estimate. So the cunning hand of tlie arti- 

 san, informed by education and experience, gives being and purpose to 

 myriad forms of machinery, which perform the labor of the farm and 

 workshop, and illustrate this age as the noblest the world has ever seen 

 in the development of science applied to the uses of ever^-day life. The 

 econom}' of time and labor produced b}- modern machinery is wonderful. 

 The work of one hundred millions of men is performed by machinery in 

 Massachusetts alone, in a single year. 



Not only has intelligence given us control over the subtle elements that 

 once roamed destructively and masterless around the pendant globe, the 

 objects of fear to abject superstition ; not only has it evoked from the 

 forest and mine the cunning mechanisms that plough and reap, that 

 measure and weave, that dig, and sew, and print; but it has beautified 

 our homes, enhanced our comforts, conserved our health, lengthened our 

 lives, made life desirable by many additions to its enjoyments, and added 

 to our resources, our wealth, and our power. '• The educated man." saj'S 

 Carlysle, "stands in the midst of a boundless arsenal and magazine, filled 

 with all the weapons man's skill has been able to devise from the earliest 

 time; and he works accordingly with a strength borrowed from all past 

 ages." 



Li no department of human industry has education produced more val- 

 uable results, or ma}* more future benefit from it be expected, than among 

 agriculturists. Sir Humphrey Davy once remarked, when speaking ot 

 tlie future influence of agricultural chemistry, that " nothing is impossi- 

 ble to labor aided by science. The objects of the skillful agriculturist 

 are like those of the thoughtful patriot. Men value most what they have 

 gained Avith efibrt, and a just confidence in their own powers results from 

 success. They love their country better because they have seen it im- 

 proved by their own talents and industry, and they identify with their 

 own interests the existence of those institutions and pui-suits which have 

 afforded them security, independence, and the multi])lied enjoyments of 

 civilized life." Of so much importance to the community is the subject 



