APPENDIX. 1 83 



Nothing, surely, but an increase of the difficultios, already so 

 destructive to the usefulness of our common .schools. 



2. The teachers are utterly incompetent to give instruction 

 in this science. A knowledge of it has ^^ot been demanded as 

 a qualification to become a common school teacher; and were 

 it demanded now, where could ou'- teachers go to obtain the 

 requisite qualifications ? And echo answers— Where ? 



3. Ao-riculture is an ci-i^stract and an abstruse science, hav- 

 ino- to deal with the i^ost obscure and intricate operations of 

 nature. The study ot such a science, to make it of any practical 

 value requires a s^o^l degree of intellectual maturity. Is any 

 sucli cultivatiop ^i^*^ maturity of mind attained in our common 

 schools as h necessary to secure such an end ? Your commit- 

 tee think choy hazard nothing in affirming that no such maturity 

 is fouuii there. Surely, if the most common and most studied 

 branches are so imperfectly mastered in these schools, what 

 must bo the result with this most abstruse of sciences ? Utter 

 failure, and nothing else. 



4. The common schools can by no possibility meet the 

 present wants of the agriculturists of this State, as indicated in 

 our answer to the first question proposed. They have not the 

 first requisite to this ^nd, in any respect whatever. No soils, 

 manures, plants or seeds, can here be analyzed ; no suggestions 

 to practical farmers, as to means of improving lands, increasing 

 their fertility or making the productions of their farms more 

 bountiful — increasing the quantity and improving the quality of 

 their manures, or pointing out new sources of fertilizers. All 

 these most important and indispensable agencies for the im- 

 provement of agriculture, are here unprovided for; and what is 

 more, there is no possibility of securing them through their 

 agency. 



Your Committee would not say, the time may not come, when 

 these schools may attain a condition and position, which will 

 warrant the introduction of agricultural science, as an elemen- 

 tary study ; but they do say, that in their opinion, that time has- 

 not yet come. And they would respectfully suggest, that the 

 line of policy is, first of all, to take measures to put these 

 schools on a very different footing from that on which they now 

 stand, before time or money is spent in attempting to introduce 



