278 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



to me, is where the danger lies. It is not to the farmer himself 

 or to his family, nor to the public health, but in the destruction 

 of his profit, and of the herd. 



Con ver. lion adjourned to 8 p. m. 



EVENING SEwSvSION. 

 Convention called to order at 8 p. m. 

 Vice-President Seely in the chair. 



The President. The Convention will now please come 

 lo order, and we will open the exercises of the evening with 

 music. 



Music. 



The President. At this our closing session it is a great 

 pleasure to me to announce to you that we are to have a lady 

 to speak to us on a very important topic, " The Education 

 of Books and of Nature." I am happy to introduce to you 

 Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer of Cambridge, Mass. 



THE EDUCATION OF BOOKS AND OF NATURE. 



By Mrs. Alice Freeman Palmer. 



Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen, and friends: It is a 

 very happy subject which your officers have been good enough 

 to choose for me, an old teacher and a farmer's daughter. I 

 cannot imagine a more pertinent time than upon an occasion 

 like this and before this earnest company breaks up for home, 

 to have a little talk on this subject of the education of 

 books and of nature. It is a subject, of course, that is very 

 pressing to us all, not only in the farmhouses, but in the uni- 

 versity life, and I am certainly happy to feel that during these 

 last few years we have seen more discussion of an important 

 character and have seen more honest effort for the child and 

 on the subject of education generally than in any other time 

 any of us can remember. Not long ago, I was one of a great 



