SECRETARY'S REPORT. 47 



I feel the utmost diffidence in attempting to speak at all upon 

 a subject of which I am conscious I have only the slightest pos- 

 sible glimpse. I am no farmer ; I have not the means to be a 

 farmer ; I have not the time to be one ; I have none of the 

 opportunities for that sort of enjoyment or culture which are 

 given to many of the gentlemen who are here before me ; and 

 therefore I can only lisp what I may call the struggling aspira- 

 tions of a soul which feels a certain sympathy with a great object, 

 a grand purpose ; which is grand when considered in connection 

 with our patriotic as well as our economical duties and interests 

 as citizens and as men ; and I feel that in so doing, I only com- 

 mend to other men a line of thought which they can pursue 

 with a degree of profit and instruction to which I can hope in 

 no measure to aspire. And if by these few remarks thus unex- 

 pectedly made, I shall have opened the way to a discussion, I 

 shall be more than thankful for having had the opportunity to 

 make them. 



C. L. Flint. — It so happens that I have given my views on 

 this subject at very considerable length in the last Annual 

 Report, which has been placed, probably, in the liands of almost 

 every person present ; so that my general views in regard to the 

 subject of agricultural education in Massachusetts are pretty 

 well known. But perhaps it may be well to state, very briefly, 

 what has already been done by the trustees of the Agricultural 

 College, — for that is a subject which I suppose this question was 

 intended to embrace. 



It is well known, probably, to most persons here present, that 

 the national government made a grant, two years ago, of public 

 land scrip to each of the loyal States, in the proportion of 30,000 

 acres for each representative and senator in Congress, for the 

 purpose of establishing agricultural colleges in the several 

 States. That gave Massachusetts 3(30,000 acres of the public 

 land. By the terms of the Act, one-tenth only of that grant 

 could be used for the purchase of land for an agricultural col- 

 lege in each State. That took out 36,000 acres of the scrip. 

 The legislature .in its wisdom saw fit to grant three-tenths of the 

 remainder to be spent under the direction of the Massachusetts 

 Institute of Technology. That is an institute which has been 

 incorporated in Boston, and which is starting forth under very 

 favorable circumstances, designed to teach the application of 



