212 WORCESTER SOCIETY. 



attention will show community the importance of introducing 

 into our schools, better text-books, or rather some text-books on 

 farming. The same intluences will act in a degree upon the 

 selection of schoolhouse sites, and lead our districts to avoid 

 the vicinity of a poorly tilled farm, as they would proximity to 

 a stagnant and undrainable bog for the spot where " young 

 ideas may shoot." But all this will not provide teachers inter- 

 ■ested in the soil. It is suggested that we need in each of our 

 'Counties, a good agricultural school, of high order. The re- 

 mainder of this essay will be devoted to the discussion of these 

 questions : Why is such a school demanded ? What should be 

 its plan 7 And how can it he started and sustained 7 



1st. Why is such a school demanded ? To secure deeper 

 interest in agriculture in the teachers of district schools. Our 

 schools receive a tincture from our academies, as our academies 

 do from our colleges. Colleges fiu-nish many of our academies 

 and high schools, as well as district schools, with teachers, from 

 among the undergraduates. These come from a literary atmos- 

 phere, and give such a cast to their instructions. They prefer to 

 teach " higher branches." They regard labor as beneath 

 them, in nine cases out of ten. This is one of the inevitable 

 results of our present system of college training. What interest 

 can they be expected to throw around the study of agriculture ? 

 Have we any reason to expect from them, hints, remarks, and 

 illustrations designed and adapted to elevate the employment 

 which they ?ieglect, if they do not despise it ? Our school 

 teachers generally have no inclination to spend their energies 

 upon such efforts, and, such is the state of public opinion, that 

 they would not venture to attempt it, if they wished to. Our 

 committees could not be expected to sustain them at present. 

 But let our teachers come from under the influence of minds 

 which appreciate the importance of our agriculture, and labor 

 by lectures, and at recitations, and in social intercourse to ren- 

 der its employments interesting, respectable and profitable in 

 the opinion of their pupils, and such efforts will be imitated 

 when those pupils come in their turn to fill the teacher's desk. 

 If it be asked why we should not rather seek to so modify ex- 

 tisting schools as to meet this want, why not introduce such in- 



