46 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



illogical speech. It was a speech made, I think, for buncombe ; 

 but Mr. Buncombe was not there to hear. The audience did 

 not happen to be opposed to the Agricultural College. The 

 first position taken was, that the Agricultural College would 

 prove a failure ; and the next was, that an Agricultural College 

 was impracticable. Well, why should an Agricultural College 

 be more impracticable than a law school, a school of medicine, 

 or a commercial school ? But then gentlemen who read, who 

 know anything of the history of agricultural science and liter- 

 ature in Europe, know that the lights of Europe, practical and 

 scientific, have originated in those schools. It was said in this 

 speech that if young men were educated at the Agricultural 

 College they would not follow farming. That has not been 

 found to be the fact in Europe. Agricultural science — practical 

 agricultural knowledge — is in demand in Europe ; and those 

 who have graduated from the agricultural schools there have 

 become most valuable stewards on large estates ; have become 

 lecturers and writers ; in short, have become the lights of Euro- 

 pean agriculture. To be sure, some young men who study law 

 or medicine abandon the profession ; but generally, a man who 

 adopts a profession devotes himself to it, no matter how disa- 

 greeable it may be in some respects. See what Professor Agassiz 

 does for the cause of science. You could not find one Irishman 

 in a hundred who would go through what he does to obtain 

 accurate information. Will men who undertake to learn the 

 science of agriculture be any more likely to abandon their 

 purpose than the lawyer or doctor ? 



Again, he said, teachers could not be obtained. Pray tell us 

 how teachers are obtained in law and medicine ? Do they 

 spring up out of the ground ? Are they spontaneous, like the 

 trees, or have they been educated ? Then he said further, 

 (showing himself very illogical,) the mass of the people could 

 not be made scientific. Well, I ask, applying the same means 

 to the same ends, is it not as easy to make one hundred men 

 scientific as one man ? But he says, the utmost that can be 

 done is to have some scientific lecturers go round among the 

 people and teach the elementary principles that the people may 

 adopt. Now, pray tell us where these lecturers and scientific 

 teachers are to come from, who are to go round among the com- 

 munity and give that instruction which the ex-governor thought 



