AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 



SECOND REPORT* 



OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE FOB PROMOTING THE INTRODUCTION OF 

 AGRICULTURAL BOOKS IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES. 



(Members of the Special Committee— Hon. John Greig, Governor Seward, Lieut. Gov. Dickmson, 

 James Lennox, John A. King, James S. Wadsworth, and Henry O'Reilly.) 



[Read at the annual meeting of the State Agricultural Society, Jan. 1845.] 



The committee appointed under resolutions passed at the last annu- 

 al meeting of the New- York State Agricultural Society, for the pur- 

 pose of promoting the introduction of agricultural books and studies 

 in the schools and libraries throughout the State, and also for the pur- 

 pose of selecting such prize essays from among the Transactions of 

 the Society, as may be most appropriately published in volumes of 

 suitable size for the " Family and School District Libraries," respect- 

 fully report : — 



That, in furtherance of the duty devolved on them, they have open- 

 ed and maintained correspondence with friends of agriculture and edu- 

 cation in various parts of this State and other States. They prompt- 

 ly adopted, and perseveringly pursued, such means as they supposed 

 best calculated to promote the object in view. They appealed at 

 once and directly to the superintendents of the common schools — in- 

 voking those officers to throw their influence systematically in favor 

 of the introduction of agricultural and horticultural books and studies 

 into the schools and libraries connected with the common school orga- 

 nization. To these invocations, the most gratifying responses were 

 promptly heard from that efficient class of public officers. From the 

 county superintendents in various sections of the State, as well as 

 from the Department of Common Schools which exercises supervision 

 over the whole system, the language of approbation and encourage- 

 ment was fully uttered. Nor was the expression of opinion confined 

 to individual impulses. In their collective capacity as well as indivi- 

 dually, the superintendents manifested great cordiality in the cause. 



The State Convention of Common School Superintendents, (which 

 met in Rochester in June, and of which Henry E. Rochester was pre- 

 sident,) publicly testified, what is abundantly manifested in the indi- 

 vidual expressions of many of these officers — a lively interest in the 



• The first Report was made at the meeting of the Executive Committee of the State 

 Society, held in July, 1844, at Poughkeepsie — as published at the time in pamphlet form, 

 and in the Albany Argus and Evening Journal. 



