178 YALE AGRICULTURAL LECTURES. 



How tremblingly they two had started on their work, with 

 their little collection of apparatus ! Their first class of pupils 

 was very small in number, but all its members had achieved 

 honorable reputations. Their beginning, small as it was, was 

 still due to the enlightened views and generous enthusiasm of 

 Mr. John T. Norton, of Farmington, who contributed $5,000 

 toward a fund to endow a Professorship of Agricultural 

 Chemistry, and, since his son's untimely death, had allowed 

 the income from that sum to remain for appropriations to the 

 same end. 



The CHAIRMAN spoke feelingly to the memory of Norton, 

 and foresaw for this department a flattering future. 



Other gentlemen expressed similar views, and, after a pleas 

 ant evening's discussion, the meeting adjourned, without day. 



It is not worth our while to indulge in lengthy comments 

 upon the mode of conducting this course of lectures, nor upon 

 the success which has crowned the labors of its managers ; but 

 that the readers of this volume may know how truly national 

 an interest had been excited in it, and for the sake of the 

 future historian of American agricultural education, I will state 

 that there have been registered on the book about 350 names. 

 Of these persons, 172 only are from Connecticut, 23 from 

 Massachusetts, 35 from New York, and the remainder is di 

 vided between Indiana, Kentucky, Vermont, Ohio, Pennsyl 

 vania, New Jersey, New Hampshire, Maine, Illinois, Florida, 

 Wisconsin, Rhode Island, and the Canadas, East and West. 

 Considering that in the Undergraduate Department of Yale 

 there are only 502 students, the regular attendance of 

 nearly or quite 350 at the agricultural lectures should be 

 well weighed in the minds of the Faculty, and prompt 

 them to not only give a tacit recognition, but, so far as 

 consistent with professional duties, take an active interest in 

 the establishment of this department of agriculture. They 

 may rest assured that, by so doing, they will make the name 

 of Yale more respected in her old age than it ever has been 



