158 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Avorld the first free public school supported by taxation ; 

 and I am not surprised that a town in this State should 

 mention the public school as the first thing in which it finds 

 occasion to rejoice. 



Then he mentioned the churches. Well we know that the 

 spire of the church arose by the side of the schoolhouse 

 when the settlers first came and made their landing on our 

 shores ; and in that, too, the town is typical of Massachu- 

 setts, from the very beginning. 



Then he mentioned the normal school, — not exactly a 

 crowning glory, but something that binds the public school 

 system together, that makes it effective, that insures that all 

 the schools throughout the State shall have trained teachers 

 to do that work which is the most valuable work, — to train 

 the young thought of the Commonwealth. 



Then he mentions the camping ground, the })lace where 

 our militia gather from season to season. It is indicative 

 of the strong arm of the Commonwealth ; indicative of the 

 courage aijd the determination of the men who settled in 

 the wilderness, and who had to fight for their foothold on 

 the continent against the wild child of the forest ; and whose 

 descendants inherited that passion for freedom and breathed 

 the air of liberty so long that they could not be curbed, and 

 went out to stir the fires of revolution, and were willing to 

 meet the consequences with guns upon their shoulders ; the 

 men who, tlii'ough our whole history, have been the ones that 

 have preserved our rights and liberties. 



It is the State Board of Agriculture that is being greeted 

 to-night, reminding us not merely that peoples are dependent 

 on the tilling of the soil, but also of the fact that those who 

 early came to this Commonwealth were men who had the 

 enterprise and the perseverance to obtain crops where ordi- 

 narily it would have been considered almost impossible. 

 They so developed this land that we have acres that are 

 able to produce as high a percentage in values as any acres 

 in the world. I do not know how there could be a greater 

 combination of the things that have made Massachusetts 

 great than those that are suggested by this occasion, and by 

 the words of the one who so kindl}^ extended the greeting 

 to us this evening. 



