BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. 



SESSION OF OCTOBER, 1869, AT ORONO AND BANGOR. 



The first session of the Board of Agriculture, held under the 

 Statute approved March 1st (see page 231), began at the College 

 of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts on Tuesday the 19th day of 

 October. 



It was gratifying to find a recent accession to the number of 

 students, enlarged means of imparting instruction, an additional 

 Professor at work, and abundant evidence of ability and determi- 

 nation on the part of all connected with the institution to succeed. 

 There were present, also, several members of the Board of Trustees 

 of the College, and the forenoon was chiefly devoted to the usual 

 recitations of the classes, and to remarks by those present, all of 

 whom expressed the highest degree of satisfaction at the thorough- 

 ness of the instruction, the progress of the students, and the happy 

 results of the imion of labor with study. 



Professor Hamlin, of Colby University, one of the newly ap- 

 pointed members at large, said that, in all his experience as a 

 teacher in difierent institutions, he had never heard better recita- 

 tions or witnessed greater evidence of thorough, careful work on 

 the part of both pupils and instructors. He alluded to the sym- 

 pathy and cooperation which should exist between pupils and 

 teachers as necessary to the best results, and believed it existed 

 in the present. institution. He thoroughly believed in the necessity 

 of proper exercise of both mind and body in the system of training 

 young men, and was more convinced of the benefits of this course 

 after having visited and become somewhat familiar with the success 

 of the Michigan Agricultural College, where manual labor had been 

 united with study long enough to demonstrate its usefulness. 



Professor Fernald, in reply to an inquiry whether the bodily labor 

 interfered with intellectual progress, replied that so far as he could 

 judge from the working of the system for something more than a 

 year, it did not — but, on the contrary, they were better fitted for 

 study by reason of having engaged in physical labor, and he re- 



