374 [Senate 



tural education throughout the range of their widely extended sphere^ 

 it is safe to anticipate that the results will soon and largely realize 

 all reasonable expectations in promoting the welfare of the schools^ 

 as well as in advancing the interests of agriculture and domestic in- 

 dustry generally. 



Among the officers of educational systems in other States, who 

 have shown the most lively interest in co-operating with your com- 

 mittee on this subject, may be named Henry Barnard, of Connecti- 

 cut, and Oliver Comstock, of Michigan — gentlemen who have ren- 

 dered themselves well known for their long and active devotion to 

 intellectual improvement in other spheres, as well as in their present 

 positions as superintendents of public instruction in their respective 

 commonw^ealths. 



In addition to the interest taken by Col. Young, the State Super- 

 intendent of common schools in our own State, the committee can 

 point with satisfaction to the intelligent and industrious support 

 which the cause of agricultural education has received at the hands 

 of S. S. Randall, the Deputy Superintendent of the State, to whose 

 letters reference is made for arguments enforcing the views which in- 

 fluence the State Agricultural Society in raising this committee upon 

 that important subject. (Vide letters marked I. and II. at the conclu- 

 sion of this report.) 



Examination of the correspondence herewith submitted as a part 

 of this report, will indicate the extent to which gentlemen in other 

 departments of society, as well as those engaged in the agricultural 

 and educational organizations, have participated in giving the cause 

 of agricultural education the impetus which it now experiences in its 

 onward progress. Worthy of special mention, is the late President 

 of the State Society, James S. Wadsworth, who, in his last report, 

 bore emphatic testimony, in these words, to the importance of the 

 cause which your committee were appointed to promote : — " The So- 

 ciety has recently adopted a measure from which much good is anti- 

 cipated," said Mr. Wadsworth. " It is proposed to prepare volumes 

 of Selections from the Prize Essays of the Society, and that these be 

 offered to some enterprising publishers, with a view of having them 

 printed in form suitable for incorporation with the School District Li- 

 braries. Liberal premiums are also offered for the best ["Text-Books 

 and] series of Essays on the Importance of Scientific Knowledge in 

 connexion with the Ordinary Pursuits of Agriculture ; with the design 

 of having those works also included in the proposed volumes on ag- 

 ricultural subjects for the District Libraries. It is believed that those 

 Valuable fountains of popular knowledge will be greatly enriched by 

 the volumes embodying the best of the Prize Essays, and that the 

 sanction and recommendation of this Society will lead to their gene- 

 ral introduction throughout this State, if not in other States. It is re- 

 garded as not only the duty of the Society to encourage and promote 

 the discoveries and developments of science as connected with rural 

 pursuits, but to spread the results thus attained among the mass of 

 practical and laboring farmers. In the attainment of this latter ob- 

 ject, it is believed that no more effectual instrument can be employed, 



