MASS. BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 433 



principles which they learn in the school, I do not know how 

 it strikes others, but it did stiike me that it was a good way to 

 promote agriculture. The societies are doing mucli, but it 

 seems to me that these schools are to elevate the societies. 



The remarks of his excellency are very proper. The people 

 must do this thing. Such is the nature of our institutions, that 

 if the people do not wish a school, the government cannot 

 sustain one. If the people are not ready to force the govern- 

 ment to help them, it will do no good. That was the case in 

 Europe. Individuals there, even from the j'ear 1774, strug- 

 gled and sacrificed their property and their lives in this cause. 

 They were repelled by the government again and again before 

 they could get any assistance. Then they would start a pri- 

 vate school, and would find it a heavy affair, as any such school 

 must necessarily be. It must be a weighty concern, and indi- 

 viduals, one would suppose, would sink under it. But the 

 thing has been done there, and the government has been, as it 

 were, compelled to take hold of it. There is a feeling among 

 the people which makes the government feel as if it must act. 

 And availing themselves of the general peace in Europe, they 

 have been trying to establish schools of agriculture. 



Remarks of Richard Bagg, Jr., of Springfield : — Agricultural 

 education is our great theme. It has become a very popular 

 theme. The phrase is quite familiar, and yet we hardly know 

 what is meant by it. 



Our fathers are held in grateful remembrance, as philanthro- 

 pists, because their first public acts were to lay broad and deep 

 in the virgin soil of New Kns,\3.nd, foundatio?is for those edu- 

 cational and religious institutions which have contributed, more 

 than anything else, to give her importance and her sons influ- 

 ence. 



Let it not be supposed, however, that intelligence is a nat- 

 ural production, indigenous to the soil of New England. It is the 

 result of that educational system, whose genial influence perme- 

 ates her every nook and corner; not only teaching "the young 

 idea how to shoot," but teaching also the great lessons of self- 

 reliance and self-control; disciplining New England mind to 

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