206 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



People said, " Well, it is a failure." Not a bit of it! If a 

 bright man sees a boy who has been to an agricultural school 

 and says, "I want to get a boy that knows something," it is 

 nothing against the school, I assure you. If he has been 

 there and learned something, and got habits that he did not 

 have before that make him a desirable man in any vocation, 

 it is nothing against the school. I sliould like to see that 

 school well patronized, well supported. I am interested in 

 its welfare. I have no doubt that it will be of very great 

 benefit to this State in promoting its intellectual and material 

 prosperity. 



The Chairman. I will say that our Secretary, Mr. Gold, 

 has two young men at work for him who graduated from this 

 school, last fall. I would like to hear from him whether 

 they are any better for having been there two years. 



Mr. Gold. I can say that they are very satisfactory helpers 

 upon the farm. How much better they are in comparison 

 with other young men that I have who have been more con- 

 tinuously upon the farm, I am not prepared to say. But one 

 point I wish to enlarge upon a little, which Prof. Brewer just 

 touched, and that is, that the education of this so-called 

 agricultural school is not wasted by the State of Connecticut, 

 or any other State that furnishes such facilities, because all 

 the boys who may be educated there do not remain upon the 

 farm. This practical knowledge of the principles of agricul- 

 ture is as much needed by our professional men, by our 

 lawyers, our clergymen, and our doctors, and our manufac- 

 turers, also — I was going to say as much needed by them as 

 by the farmers themselves, and, really, it does amount very 

 much to that, in all the business relations of life. These 

 simple principles and the practice of agriculture, which Prof. 

 Brewer has shown us comes so naturally to the boy through 

 his training on the farm, are exemplified, enlarged, and built 

 up as best it can be done during the two years of semi-profes- 

 sional study which we give the boys there on the farm of the 

 institution ; and if it is good for them to be brought up for 

 the business of life on a farm, it is good for them, also, in 



