CULTURE AND SOCIAL POSITION. 49 



men were yesterday examined for admission into this college. 

 Thus one bugbear that the opponents of the college have always 

 brought out, that farmers' sons would be unwilling to devote so 

 much time in a thorough preparation for their profession, has 

 disappeared at the outset. We call farming a profession now, 

 for why is it not entitled to rank among the learned professions, 

 since we have a school specially designed to educate men for 

 this calling ? We hail the institution of this college as an omen 

 of the highest good in the future of the farmers of New Eng- 

 land. We have a rigorous climate and sterile soil ; but this 

 very rigor and sterility, though great drawbacks in the produc- 

 tion of crops and rearing of stock, are stimulants to mental 

 activity and bodily vigor. A lazy, shiftless farmer in Massachu- 

 setts must either move West or starve. As the cold, bleak hills 

 of Vermont have a tendency to produce fine wool not only on 

 the backs of sheep but on their faces and legs, and in folds all 

 over the body, so that although the Yermont shepherd cannot 

 compete with the Texan in the wool market, he has succeeded 

 in producing a breed of sheep which has taken the first premium 

 at the world's fair, and is sought for at fabulous prices on both 

 sides of the Atlantic, so we here in Massachusetts, if we cannot 

 compete with the fertile valleys of the West in raising wheat 

 and corn, can raise something far more valuable — we can raise 

 men — and the demand will come up for them from all parts of 

 the country as educators. As the Vermont merinos are needed 

 South and West to restore the quality of the flocks deteriorated 

 in the warmer climate and by the coarser herbage, so Massachu- 

 setts men will be called abroad to teach and practise the princi- 

 ples of restoring a soil wasted by unskilful cultivation. Mil- 

 lions of acres of such soil, worked by ignorant laborers under 

 the management of negligent masters, are now in the market, 

 only needing intelligent and energetic men to make them bud 

 and blossom like Eden. 



There is one feature in our Agricultural College to which I 

 desire to call the special attention of the men before me. It is 

 the popular course of lectures to be given each winter by the 

 most scientific and practical agriculturists of the country, each 

 discoursing on the topic with which he is most familiar. It is 

 too late for those of us who have reached the meridian of life to 

 think of going to college and graduating with our bachelor's 



7* 



