52 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



With such an environment, the possessors of such tra- 

 ditions, you are met together. And what is this assem- 

 blage? It represents the agriculture of Massachusetts, and 

 herein lies the significance of the situation. The college 

 and the farmer have joined hands. This close sympathy and 

 relation between the higher range of intellectual thought 

 and effort and a board which is the official representative of 

 a great industry symbolizes the remarkable change that has 

 come to school and college education during the latter part 

 of the nineteenth century. Our knowledge is not only 

 vastly modified in kind, but its use is directed to ends greatly 

 different from those formerly sought. Education in litera- 

 ture, philosophy and the sciences is now more than a luxury, 

 more than the possession of the recluse, more than the neces- 

 sary equipment for the old-time professions : it has become 

 essential to modern industrial life and a potent factor in in- 

 dustrial progress. 



I will not burden your thought at this time by presenting 

 the statistics of this attempt at training our young men and 

 Avomen in the sciences that relate to the various arts and to 

 the common affairs of life. Suffice it to say that millions 

 of dollars, hundreds of teachers and investigators and thou- 

 sands of students are involved in this effort to understand 

 and control the energies of the material world, in order that 

 we may live and labor in harmony with nature's laws. The 

 means for carrying on this great educational and research 

 movement in the United States are largely supplied by the 

 national and State governments. As a rule, the intelligent 

 masses are in sympathy with this use of public funds. This 

 thing has not been done in a corner, but after a full and free 

 discussion by the press and from the platform. Congress 

 and State Legislatures have been repeatedly memorialized 

 in behalf of appropriations to the colleges of agriculture and 

 the mechanic arts and to experiment stations ; and, so far as 

 I know, there is no disposition among the people to turn 

 back from the road which we are now travelling. The dis- 

 position is rather to enlarge and perfect the facilities for 

 teaching applied science and for the discovery of new truths. 



While we recognize this somewhat general demand for 

 government aid to technical education and an assent to a 



