40 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



find them. You must, therefore, (and this is the point to which 

 I want to call your attention,) you must organize something 

 like a normal school to fit teachers to give that kind of instruction 

 in all our agricultural schools and colleges, of which there are 

 already so many that the idea of organizing a normal school to 

 educate teachers in that direction is not out of place — is not 

 disproportioned to the object. I think that this object can be 

 reached sooner than you would anticipate, because you have 

 already more in the way of securing that result than you are 

 aware of. You may remember that eight years ago the State 

 granted $100,000 to build a Museum of Natural History at 

 Cambridge, and by private subscriptions and bequests that 

 amount has been increased to something like -1300,000. I have 

 been honored with the direction of that institution, and I have 

 done everything I could to make it what it should be — the 

 nursery of scientific and natural history studies. Let me say, 

 that it is the only institution now in the country where, the 

 whole year round, at all times, there are dissections going on — 

 not of human bodies — that belongs to the medical school — but 

 of animals of all classes ; that there are a few students learning 

 natural history there ; and that, at this moment, the work done 

 in that institution, of which Massachusetts knows very little, has 

 made such a mark in Europe, that yesterday I received a letter 

 from Prof. Leuckardt, one of tlie leading zoologists of the day, 

 and editor of the practical scientific journal of Europe, ia 

 which, alluding to what has been done in that institution, he 

 says : " The position ^f America in regard to these matters is 

 really wonderful, and excites my admiration. How miserably 

 small, in comparison with that, appear our university doings 

 and our efforts." That is what a European professor, the head 

 of one of the great European universities, writes respecting one 

 of your institutions, only a few miles from here. 



Now, I ask, why does not that institution yield results for 

 home consumption ? Simply because it has not yet the means 

 of sustaining a sufficient number of teachers to enable it to apply 

 its capabilities to that specific object. But suppose that some 

 benevolent individuals, some association like this, or the State, 

 should grant merely the means of appointing one professor of 

 anatomy, applied to the study of domestic animals, and one 

 professor of entomology, applied to agriculture ; the building is 



