308 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



vivify the intellect of their pupils, they are forced by the 

 pressure of numbers to direct their pupils to commit to 

 memory some superannuated book, and make them recite 

 things not worth knowing. So there we must begin. We must 

 begin by relieving the teacher from a task to which no human 

 being is equal ; for it is impossible for any one person, at the 

 same time, to teach eighty pupils well, in one and the same 

 room. It is physically impossible. It is past endurance ; 

 and all those who have tried to do this kind of work, honestly 

 and faithfully, have paid for the effort with the loss of health. 

 And then there is another point. In order to get men capa- 

 ble of performing the difficult task of teaching, you must give 

 greater inducements to able intellects to devote themselves 

 to the task. The teacher's profession must not be the least 

 remunerative of any profession in the community, as at pres- 

 ent it is. Only those who by nature cannot help being teach- 

 ers go into it, and their willingness to teach is misused by 

 the community by giving them a pittance for their existence. 

 So one more thing is needed : you must organize normal 

 schools to educate teachers of natural history and science 

 generally. You must not only determine that you will intro- 

 duce these branches of knowledge into your schools, but you 

 must prepare teachers for the task. 



And here let me say a good word for the institution with 

 which I am connected. I am trying, in the Museum at Cam- 

 bridge, to educate such teachers ; and most of those who are 

 already abroad in the community are, I am happy to say, my 

 pupils. Next year we shall make another effort in that direc- 

 tion, and organize a course of instruction on the seashore for all 

 the teachers of the State who shall be willing to go, and charge 

 them nothing. I hope this will come to pass next year. I 

 had full confidence that it would, before the great calamity 

 that has befallen Boston, because I knew that I could always 

 depend upon the liberality of friends in that city to support 

 any undertaking which seemed to promise valuable results. 

 Whether in these dark days I shall be able to at once carry 

 my plan to the extent which I had hoped, I do not know, but 

 if I am able to carry it out, the instruction shall be this : All 

 day long, those who shall come shall be taught how to observe. 

 If they are not naturally able, naturally inclined towards 



