30 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



dustries is raised or lowered so the standing of our New 

 England, that we all love so well, is exalted or depressed. 

 You have all noticed how those massive buildings in our 

 cities are raised, how jack-screws are placed underneath, one 

 after another, until perhaps a thousand are in place ; then, 

 the workmen turning each one around, the building begins 

 to rise and finally is placed many feet in the air. This is a 

 homely illustration of the work of advanced institutions. 

 Our industrial colleges and boards of agriculture are en- 

 gaged in advancing the greatest industrial interests of the 

 land. A class is graduated this year, another next and 

 another the year after. Its members go out into life's 

 work, each prepared to do something for the welfare of his 

 State and country in his chosen line. Each adds something 

 to the resources of the country. Boards of agriculture 

 hold meetings and institutes annually. The influence of 

 each is uplifting, and by and by, like the massive building, 

 we shall see the great interests of agriculture and manu- 

 factures, with all auxiliary interests, raised by the power of 

 their efforts. 



One of the gravest mistakes made in these days is that 

 when a young man leaves school and college his education 

 is finished. The boy leaves the grammar school at the age 

 of fourteen with what he calls a finished education. The 

 ambitious youth goes forth from the village academy with a 

 finished education. The collegian is graduated from the 

 university, sells his text-books to a freshman, piles up his 

 acquirements in musty alcoves and begins life with a 

 finished education. Perish the thought, — education is 

 never finished. 



Agassiz, holding in his hands the treasuries of an organic 

 world, was a student to the day of his death. Sir William 

 Jones and Elihu Burritt, the two men who learned so many 

 languages, were students to the day of their departure to 

 the great university above. Sir William Jones could speak 

 eighteen languages and many dialects, and yet could keep 

 silent in them all. "Yes," said Michael Angelo, at the age 

 of ninety years, to a young man who had finished his educa- 

 tion, whom he met on his way to the Coliseum, " t/es, I 

 still go to lectrn." 



