BOTn SIDES OF THE QUESTION. 51 



Again, you cannot get teachers. If you had 1150,000 to-day 

 to spend in the employment of the best teachers, you could not 

 find teachers in this country that would fill that school. Our 

 ablest men are located and fixed for life, and we have men that 

 nature does not duplicate oftener than once in a generation. If 

 we can establish something that will duplicate them oftener, let 

 us do so ; but the only way we can do it, in my judgment, is by 

 bringing up our institutions that have been in operation for two 

 centuries and more, and that have the largest endowments, and 

 are still adding to them. Our learned men like to find their 

 equals or superiors if they are to be found. They do not care 

 to go to Amherst ; they come to the " hub of the universe " if 

 they want to get the most knowledge. I would like to create 

 an institution that should not only be an honor to Massachusetts, 

 but eclipse all other institutions in the world. 



E. W. Bull, of Concord. I did not intend to say anything 

 on this subject ; but I cannot help thinking that our friend Per- 

 kins has lost his faith, somewhat to my surprise, I must say. 

 Notwithstanding that what he says would lead us to believe that 

 farming lets down the intellect ; that the cultivated man cannot 

 be kept on a farm ; that the moment you send a man to college 

 to improve him he ceases to be a farmer ; I want to ask him, 

 are they less intelligent in Berkshire than they used to be ? Are 

 they poorer farmers ? Are they not better ? Have they not 

 advanced as far as the rest of the people of the State upon the 

 path of civilization on which we have all been rising ? I think 

 they have. I should be slow to doubt it. I believe it is because 

 of education that all this has happened. You cannot keep the 

 young men of Berkshire and the western part of the State at 

 home when they have so much better opportunities at the West. 

 But those who remain are better ; certainly their farms are 

 better. Farming goes on, cattle husbandry and sheep husbandry 

 and all other things go on better than in former years. You 

 have educated a surplus to go out and quicken all the land ; 

 and it is because of this education — this constant intellectual 

 activity in New England, which improves our men so much — 

 make them better farmers, better artisans, better teachers, better 

 merchants ; it is because of all this that the great West is what 

 it is to-day, and is not like the South. If it is an individual 



