17 



At the last annual meeting of the State Board of Agricul- 

 ture it was unanimously, 



Resolved, That this Board recommend to each agricultural society 

 receiving The bounty of the State, to establish at least one scholarship 

 in the Massachusetts Agricultural College, either by a fund, or by stated 

 appropriation from year to year, to be granted to some young man resid- 

 ing within the limits of said society. And that in the selection of can- 

 didates, preference should be given to such as propose to devote them- 

 selves to agricultural pursuits within the limits of said society. 



If this proposition should be adopted by every chartered society 

 in the State, it would send to the college twenty-five or thirty 

 young men who would appreciate the advantages which the 

 institution would afford, and who, after taking the regular 

 course, would return to develop the farm resources in all parts 

 of the State. 



If we did not learn the best modes of farming when we were 

 young, it was because there were then no facilities for doing so. 

 We did the best we could and used the light we had. But now 

 when we have those facilities, let us not say to our children, 

 " We did so and so and you may go and do likewise ! " 



No ! rather let us tell them to study and comprehend the age 

 in which they live, tell them they are expected to do better 

 than their fathers did, if they can, and to imitate them only 

 when they can no longer improve upon them. Tell them to 

 educate themselves for farming as a profession. Tell them the 

 world will instinctively award its honors, its dignities and its 

 power, not merely to those who are educated for the law, for 

 divinity, for medicine, for the school, or for the counting-room, 

 but to those who are educated for their occupation. Tell them 

 the professions, technically so-called, have hitherto exerted an 

 almost unbounded influence on mankind, only because they 

 have done so large a part of the thinking for the world, have 

 brought so large a share of intellect to bear on the progress of 

 the race. For these reasons the world has bowed in reverence 

 to their superiority of intellect, and has given a prominence, 

 not to law, medicine or divinity, but to that intellectual culture 

 which gives to life its grace, its harmony, its beauty and its 

 strength ; and which they may acquire, as well as others. Tell 



