44 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



changed into a different college. It is a failure from all I can 

 learn of it. "We have got to start an institution on an entirely 

 new track, and make our pathway as we go along. How shall 

 we make it ? I do not believe that a Board constituted as the 

 Board of Trustees of the Agricultural College is — twenty men 

 — can do it. Twenty men would be very likely to have twenty 

 minds. My idea is, select the very best man you can for pres- 

 ident, and then give him a wide margin. Let him go on and 

 stamp it with his individuality ; let him mark out the course, 

 and do not interfere with him unless you are satisfied he is 

 going entirely wrong ; because it must be an experimental 

 matter for a time, no matter who beats the path ; for your road 

 is all a terra incognita to you, and if there are twenty men, 

 somebody must go ahea'd and hold up the light for others to 

 follow and beat his track. Now, if you elect a man who has 

 education, who has a comprehensive knowledge of the wants of 

 the time, who has himself been already a teacher, and who is 

 chosen with especial reference to this thing, it appears to me it 

 is a part of his duty to go ahead, and that the trustees should 

 interfere with him as little as possible. I think that one of the 

 most instructive lessons in resrard to starting an institution like 

 this, is to be derived from the history of Girard College. Mr. 

 Girard left a large fortune, you know, to found an orphan 

 college in Philadelphia. He designated, as the board to oversee 

 it, the city government for the time being — a very large body, 

 chosen without any reference whatever to this college — and 

 other bodies, I think ; but at any rate a very large number of 

 men ; and for some thirteen years this college was floundering 

 about, beating its pathway, but going round in a circle, and 

 doing nothing at all. In a review of the history of that college, 

 published about two years ago in the " North American," 

 written by some one who is evidently very well acquainted with 

 the subject, the writer says that if three men or one man had 

 had the starting of that college, and impressed upon it their or 

 his individuality, the college would have been a success long 

 ago, without all this loss of time and money, and that the great 

 mistake was in burdening it with too many overseers. 



Now, with regard to the connection of the State Board of 

 Agriculture with the Agricultural College. That is already an 

 established fact ; our legislature have passed a law to that 



