26 BANQUET TO THE 



with Nature in the ministries of the garden and the 

 field. 



It has so passed into history, that no one of us 

 to-day need fail to present to himself that memorable 

 occasion in 1849, when Colonel Wilder addressed 

 the Norfolk Agricultural Society upon the value 

 of education to those engaged in productive indus- 

 tries, and urged the establishment of an agricultural 

 school or college. 



In that audience were gathered the representative 

 men of New England. The address secured the pro- 

 found attention and won the cordial approval of Levi 

 Lincoln, Josiah Ouincy, president of Harvard Univer- 

 sity, Horace Mann, Charles Francis Adams, Robert 

 C. Winthrop, Edward Everett, Daniel Webster, and 

 others whom history will join with these. Nor did 

 the eloquent arguments of that address rest with the 

 auditors ; thousands of copies were published, and 

 found their way to the firesides of thoughtful readers 

 in every part of our land. 



The intense efforts which followed, when, as leader 

 in the Senate of Massachusetts, Colonel W^ilder se- 

 cured the passage of a bill providing for the estab- 

 lishment of an agricultural school or college, only 

 to meet with defeat in the House ; his undaunted 

 energy in organizing for ultimate victory in the 

 midst of defeat ; the many and varied forms of his 

 efforts until the college was established : all this 



