16 BOARD OF AGRICULTUEE. 



doors the secretary of the board of education aud his efficient 

 corps of able professors, with a large attendance of teachers, 

 met together as they did for a four days' instruction in the 

 duties and labors of practical teachers. They entered at once 

 with spirit and zesl into all the plans and purposes that were 

 ])resented for their improvement and future usefulness. And 

 when they left, they had the consciousness of having all 

 contributed their share to the general good, and had received 

 a double portion for all their time and attention ; and they 

 also had the benediction of this whole community, from every 

 household where each had been a welcome guest, and from 

 every heart and soul that had been expanded with higher and 

 clearer conceptions of intellectual and educational improve- 

 ment. 



Happy results always follow well-directed efforts. If it had 

 been your privilege, in one or two weeks after this meeting, 

 to have visited any of the schools in this vicinity, you would 

 have found the seed that had been sown in this hall springing 

 up and starting into life. It mattered not whether it was in 

 the primary or high school, or away yonder in the white 

 school-house on the hill-side, the brown house at the forks of 

 the road, or the old red one by the Avoods, the indelible 

 impress of Professors Dickinson and "Walton, Munroe aud 

 Mason, had been made ; the seed had been sown, and as 

 true as nature to herself, it breaks its encasement, shoots into 

 active life and being, aud bears fruit. 



But you, gentlemen, may ask why I break into another de- 

 partment of our state economy ? It is simply because it is 

 the best and nearest at hand of any illustration I can give you 

 for your encouragement at this meeting. The channel through 

 which so much has come in one department can be equally 

 successful in ours for the general good. 



We invite and welcome you here for your good and the 

 community you represent, as well as for our special benefit ; 

 the communication of facts and information must be recipro- 

 cal. We do not welcome you here simply to the rich enter- 

 tainment provided for iu the rich course of lectures. Our 

 distiuo-uished professors are not to bear all the burden of this 

 labor, and it is not for them to reap the harvest; their gran- 

 aries are running over now. 



