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in their practical farm management, than the mass of men who 

 affect not to believe in any such effort at improvement. 



You, therefore, as members of this society, have duties to 

 perform, duties to the Commonwealth, duties to yourselves, 

 duties to the community ; and the first thing for you to do is 

 to see to it that the common school system in operation in your 

 several localities is carried up to its highest perfection ; to insist, 

 so far as your personal influence may go, upon its liberal sup- 

 port in the several towns ; to insist upon your full and fair 

 share of the noble bounty which the Commonwealth has set 

 apart for the schools. 



There is another thing yon can do. An agricultural college 

 is about to be opened under the fostering care of the National 

 and State governments. It is for the interest of every com- 

 munity that those who may have the advantages of an educa- 

 tion there should return and settle in its midst. Let your 

 society found one or more scholarships to aid such young men 

 as would be glad to go, but have not the means. Fifty dollars 

 a year will pay a lad's tuition and room rent in that college, 

 and let me tell you, that small as that sum may seem to many a 

 gentleman that I see before me, it is a large and generous sum to 

 many a lad who is struggling with noble aspirations and a 

 manly will against the current of circumstances to get an 

 education of a practical character and to enhance his means of 

 usefulness to the public. 



If you ask me how it should be done, I should say, either set 

 apart such a sum as will yield about fi[fty dollars a year, or let 

 wealthy and public-spirited men of means contribute the 

 amount annually, to be awarded through the society to such 

 deserving young men, farmers' sons, if they choose, as would 

 certify that it is their intention to return to locate upon farms 

 in the district where the society having such scholarship within 

 its gift is situated. There would be an advantage in having 

 the scholarships permanent and not dependent upon the 

 annual action of any board of officers every year ; and if it 

 should be determined to set apart the requisite amount received 

 from the bounty of the Commonwealth annually for a term of 

 years, I doubt if it could be better applied. 



