316 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



mildness, humility or modesty of the maiden, but add to her 

 pleasure, contentment and usefuluess. 



Applying these self-evident truths to the subjects of this essay, 

 and realizing that the study of agriculture comprehends a 

 knowledge to be acquired of all the sciences, that there is 

 scarcely a branch of science it is not necessary a man should 

 possess to be a successful farmer, we can see every reason why 

 the women who are to be the farmers' helpmeets should pursue 

 the same studies that he does, and thus retain through life their 

 intellectual equality, and be the better able to cooperate with the 

 husbands in scientific agriculture, by judicious and understand- 

 ing advice and suggestion, and implant in the young minds of 

 the coming generations that love for a study of their calling 

 which will develop it among the foremost sciences, and carry it 

 forward to a point of progress and pecuniary success undreamt 

 of by their fathers. Even those persons of experience in train- 

 ing youth, who have laid out a curriculum of studies to be pur- 

 sued in the education of women, embrace within it nearly all 

 those pursued at the Agricultural College of this State, claiming 

 that for them " the female mind possessess peculiar aptitude, 

 as the faculty of observation is more readily developed in 

 women than in men, and they possess in a greater degree the 

 genius of manipulation."* 



" My dear, will you play your thousand dollar polka ?" said 

 a farmer to his charming daughter, six months after her return 

 from a fashionable boarding-school. The young lady's musical 

 performances had dwindled piece by piece to a solitary polka, 

 and the fond parent's sole compensation for his many years' 

 outlay was the precious " thousand dollar polka." The same 

 amount of time and money expended on the education of a 

 farmer's daughter at an agricultural college, would produce 

 more permanent results, and fond parents would not have to 

 grieve, as the custom now is, over the misappropriation of their 

 hard earnings. 



If the United States is the land of modern chivalry where the 

 moral qualities of woman are most highly valued, and her station 

 in society fully acknowledged, and if, as M. de Tocqueville asserts, 

 our advancement in prosperity and civilization is owing largely 



* Dr. Hedge in a late address on the Education of Women. 



