68 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



that that want would be supplied, although it was very necessary 

 that an equally great want, and a much higher one, that of a 

 school of all the arts, should be met. It seems to me, there- 

 fore, that we have to thank Congress for putting those words, ■ 

 " practical manual labor," into the law. I think the sheet- 

 anchor of this college, as applied to the wants of the farmer^ 

 rests in the practical application of science upon the spot, in so 

 far as it can be done. 



I was very glad to hear a gentleman associated so intimately 

 with Harvard College as Prof. Agassiz, avow the sentiments 

 which he expressed with regard to the importance of more 

 practical teaching everywhere. I remember, sir, when I was at 

 Cambridge (having had the honor of graduating at that institu- 

 tion,) that when I studied astronomy, I could not ask where a 

 star was — it was against the law ; it was mathematics that I was 

 learning ; it was my mind that was being trained. I could not 

 ask to apply geometry or arithmetic to any part in surveying or 

 architecture ; it was mathematics I was studying ; and my 

 mind was cramped at the time — (not that my mind was any 

 more exploring or any more inquisitive than others) — and I 

 felt that the mind of the young man at Cambridge, in that 

 course of mathematics — and? to some extent it was true of all 

 the other studies — was made to germinate, it began to burst, 

 and then, in the very act of germination, it seemed as if it were 

 cramped. 



Now, I think that the people of the Commonwealth — not the 

 scholiasts, not the mere scholars, of the Commonwealth, but the 

 people of the Commonwealth, agree fully with the spirit and 

 substance of the remarks of Dr. Bigelow in that most remark- 

 able common-sense lecture which he gave some two years ago, 

 I believe, in Boston. I think, if what are called literary colleges 

 do not change their methods in some respects, there will be 

 such a growth of institutions like the Agricultural College, that 

 they will have to look out for themselves. I do not know, for 

 one, that it was wise, so far as Amherst College was concerned, 

 to encourage the location of an institution like this' so near to 

 her own borders, because I doubt very much whether the child 

 may not be likelier than the mother in some early future day. 

 But I think these scientific schools, the school of Technology in 

 Boston, and the various groupings of men particularly inter- 



