170 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



The directors of the society therefore decided to go on with 

 their own independent school, on a small scale ; the number 

 of applicants for admission seeming to show that many young 

 women were ready and desirous of an opportunity for instruc- 

 tion. They accordingly hired a small estate near Boston, put 

 up a green-house, and opened the school for theoretical and 

 practical instruction in horticulture. 



They have had at no time more than seven or eight pupils. 

 This fact has been mainly owing to the large expense necessarily 

 attending the school, as it was not endowed with any permanent 

 funds. The cost for board and tuition was about $400 a year, 

 a sum usually beyond the means of women who are looking 

 forward to supporting themselves for life. Few fathers have 

 yet learned to look upon education for women as a profitable 

 investment for the future. 



After the school had been in operation more than a year, 

 the society received an offer of $5,000 from Miss Nabby Joy's 

 estate, as the foundation for a free scholarship. It therefore 

 became incorporated, with right to hold real and personal 

 estate. 



Last spring, when Harvard College published its programme 

 for lectures at the Bussey Institution, it announced that the 

 lectures on chemistry, entomology and horticulture would 

 be open to women, with opportunity also for practical expe- 

 rience in the garden and in the green-houses. 



Thus our venerable Alma Mater has opened two little side 

 doors to the daughters of Massachusetts, in the university 

 lectures at Cambridge, and the Horticultural College at West 

 Roxbury. 



We trust that ere long, obeying the spirit of the age, she 

 will fling wide open her portals to sons and daughters alike, 

 crying only, " All ye who thirst, come hither and drink." 



In some important particulars the plan of the Bussey Insti- 

 tution differs so much from that of the Horticultural School, that 

 we do not yet feel sure that it will wholly supply its place. 

 It is a branch of Harvard College, and supposes its pupils to 

 have already shared the advantages of that venerable insti- 

 tution. It therefore gives no elementary instruction in any of 

 the sciences connected with horticulture, but only lectures on 

 their application to the special object of the school. As young 



