58 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



flower ; but neither eye nor intellect will avail to give you 

 definite knowledge unless the eye and the intellect are each 

 acting under the direction of the will. It is a common re- 

 mark that one can learn nothing definitely without careful 

 attention. And what is attention but the intellect acting 

 under the control of the will ? If we consider our moral ad- 

 vancement we are still more impressed with the importance 

 of will-power. I once heard ex-Governor Seymour of New 

 York say that, in the discharge of his official duties while 

 Governor, he had been called upon to consider many peti- 

 tions for the pardon of criminals. In tracing their personal 

 history, he said that he had become deeply impressed with 

 the fact that men did not difi'er so much in their knowledge 

 of what was right in conduct, nor in their impulses towards 

 the right, but that there was a wide difterence in their power 

 of will, shown in varying degrees of personal control. 



I now turn to notice the means of intellectual culture. 

 Knowledge o-ained through the senses is the basis of all sub- 

 sequent knowledge. In any course of instruction the ob- 

 serving powers should be carefully trained, that the eye, the 

 ear and the hand may be accurately used in gaining knowl- 

 edge. By our own observation we gain a knowledge ot 

 facts from w^hich we infer the general truths of science. 

 Any other approach to scientific truth is fictitious and treach- 

 erous. The value of our inferences of general truth is 

 determined by the accuracy and thoroughness of our ob- 

 servations. Hence, in gaining a knowledge of scientific truth, 

 the student must be so taught that he will for himself gain a 

 knowledge of the facts from which, by his own reflection 

 and reasoning, he can arrive at general or scientific truths 



And these studies must be so taught that they will be 

 an eflective means of developing the powers of observation. 

 The study of plants or of animals or of any of the forms ot 

 the inorganic world will be of little use if the study is by 

 books alone. The excessive use of books and the com- 

 mitting to memory of words is the intellectual ruin of far 

 too many in our schools and colleges. The greater number 

 who study botany study books about plants when they 

 should be studying the plants themselves. In our crowded 

 centres, with the appliances now found in our schools, it is 



