182 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



but it will be his want in all coming time, and must ever be 

 acquired in the same way. Thus do we answer the first ques- 

 tion proposed. 



2. How SHALL THIS WANT i!E MET ? — With thc answcr to the 

 first question distinctly in mind, the general answer to this 

 question readily suggests itself. It is this : It can be met only 

 through the agency of schools of some kind. In this general 

 statement, the intelligence of thc State would undoubtedly coin- 

 cide ; but when we come to a specific application, the methods 

 are various. And it seems but just, before presenting the scheme 

 proposed by the committee, to briefly consider the most promi- 

 nent agencies proposed from various sources, of gaining tlie pro- 

 posed end, and some of the principal reasons for their rejection. 



I. — The Coinmon Schools. 



These have been proposed as the first and most prominent 

 agency for thc diflusion of a knowledge of agricultural science. 

 Your committee have come to the conclusion, that this is an 

 agency not adapted to secure the ends most needed at the pres- 

 ent time, the reasons for which they can only suggest, for the 

 want of time and space. 



1. There are already so great a number of studies in our 

 Common Schools, that every thing has to be done in the most 

 shabby and imperfect manner. Nothing is mastered so as to 

 make it available, in any good degree, in actual practice. Even 

 arithmetic, to which more time is devoted than to any other 

 study, and often more than to all others, has to be learned over 

 again after leaving school, in most cases. And grammar — 

 what a wretched exhibition do the letters of our school boys and 

 school girls make of this most eminently useful and practical 

 study ? How are all the laws and rules they have committed 

 to memory set at defiance, in almost every sentence ? Murder 

 most foul is perpetrated everywhere on the ^-President's Eng- 

 lish.^^ And why ? Simply because of the multi})licity of studies 

 and classes, which utterly forbid devoting the requisite time to 

 any of them, to secure a thorough . and practical exercise and 

 drill. If such be the fact, as every competent supervisor of 

 schools knows it is, what can we expect from adding to this 

 already impracticable list of studies, scientific agriculture? 



