REPORTS OP COMMITTEES. 9 



by it ? In general terms we may say that it is given for the 

 promotion of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, by the col- 

 lection and diffusion of agricultural and mechanical informa- 

 tion. The Worcester North Society, receiving six hundred 

 dollars of this bounty, evidently has a duty to perform. It 

 ought to show to the State that its money has been well ex- 

 pended and has elicited its quota of information. This can 

 only be shown in its public record or printed report. If a 

 society makes no report, the inference is that it has nothing 

 worth saying and it becomes a question whether or not it 

 deserves its bounty. If the report is a bare statement of the 

 awards, it has no value except to the directly interested 

 parties. This meagerness of the annual report, or the entire 

 want of it, may be in part the fault of the society as such, but 

 is more likely to be due to the failure of the different com- 

 mittees. Each committee has intrusted to it a portion of the 

 State's bounty to be awarded to deserving competitors, and is 

 to that extent responsible to the society for its expenditure. 

 We think it the duty of every committee, where the case will 

 admit of it, to give a reason for their decision. Of what 

 value is it to the community to know that Mr. Smith's cow 

 received the first premium ? What is gained by the decision ? 

 Mr. Smith gets the money, and the committee gain what 

 information they can, by seeing the animal and hearing Smith's 

 statement. Now if the members of the committee are to be 

 the only gainers in the way of knowledge, it would be best to 

 make our committees very much larger than we do. We 

 look upon the committees rather as almoners of the State's 

 bounty on the one hand, and Smith's experience on the other. 

 If they award money or other property, they should be able 

 to, and should, show for just what it was awarded, and give 

 the reasons therefor. In many cases this, of course, would be 

 unnecessary or even impracticable, but where there are palpa- 

 ble reasons for the decision of a committee that would be ot 

 interest to the public, the committee ought, we think, to give 

 them in connection with their award. 

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