SPECIAL COURSES OF INSTRUCTION. 35 



agriculturist you will make. But then every teacher has thrown 

 away a great deal of time in trying to get general principles 

 into the minds of men that have not the first rudiments of 

 education. I am glad to see Professor Agassiz before me, for I 

 know ho will bear me out in this statement. You can make 

 artisans of them ; you can get them so that they will observe the 

 scales of a fish ; but then they run off into some absurdity or Dar- 

 winism, and there is no way of getting them back ; you cannot 

 hold them and you cannot benefit them. You want to educate 

 them so that they will know what you are talking about. How 

 often you talk to men who cannot understand you because they 

 have not the slightest conception of the principles underlying 

 what you say. The first thing you want to dojs to secure this 

 education. 



The second thing, I understand, is this. Certain men get 

 their education in other places, but they want to give a certain 

 amount of time to agriculture. I would have the course so 

 arranged that any man can come and enter that college for one 

 month, three months, six months, or a year, and select any 

 studies for the time-being that he is fitted to pursue, and attend 

 any lectures of the course, so that no man, simply because he is 

 not fitted to enter college, shall be debarred from the advantages 

 of the institution. That has nothing to do with the regular 

 college course ; that must be carried along as the basis, the sub- 

 stratum, which shall give dignity and permanency to the 

 institution. 



Another point is just the thing to which Mr. Stedman has 

 referred : that every year there shall bo delivered in that college 

 a certain number of lectures on agricultural topics ; and I trust 

 that the subjects to be discussed will be suggested by this Board, 

 in its organized capacity, and the lecturers designated, — four 

 from one man, eight from another, and ten from another. Some 

 of the most prominent agriculturists of the State have promised 

 me that they will come and deliver these lectures ; or, if they 

 cannot come themselves, they will hire men to take their places. 

 I propose a six weeks' course of not less than three lectures 

 every day, on such subjects as physical geography, agricultural 

 chemistry, zoology, botany, structural anatomy, reproduction, 

 rural architecture, and so' on ; making a full, complete course, 

 and one that I should be glad to hear, myself, repeated year after 



