MASS. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 425 



towns and small districts of the State ; and, as a general thing, 

 it may be said that they failed to produce the result which good 

 teachers ought to produce. 



We had another class which acted as teachers. They came 

 from the mass of the people. They possessed some of the 

 qualifications for teachers, bat they were deficient in many par- 

 ticulars. Neither of these classes met the wants of the com- 

 munity. Now it may happen that we shall constitute a class 

 of men who, in some respects, will resemble the young men 

 who went out from the colleges to the district schools ; and if 

 we do, they will most certainly fail to accomplish the results 

 which we expect. 



We have instituted, with regard to our common schools, — 

 and, I take it, we can reason somewhat from analogy, — we 

 have instituted Normal Schools to furnish instruction to young 

 men and women as teachers. They go there for the purpose 

 of qualifying themselves as teachers. And, I take it, these 

 institutions have accomplished most perfectly the object which 

 the State and their patrons had in view at their establishment. 



Now we are, in some way or another, to connect the science \ 

 of the college and the laboratory with the labor of the farm. 

 And the great question I apprehend is, how is this to be done? 

 It was said here the other night, at the legislative agricultural 

 meeting, that if you take young men and send them to college, 

 for the purpose of instructing them in science, with the expec- 

 tation that they would go out and instruct the farmers of the 

 State, they would fail. I thought there was some force in the 

 remark. 



Now we want, in the agricultural system of education, a 

 class of men who shall combine the science of the school with 

 the labor of the farm. Now, to my mind, it is apparent that 

 they must be drawn, in the main, from among the farmers 

 themselves. 



You must begin with the farmers, and work up,— infusing 

 into the great mass of the people an increasing desire for scien- 

 tific knowledge, which shall enable them to apply agricultural 

 sciences to agriculture itself. 



In what way, then, can you reach the great body of the 

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