1 2 Address. 



chosen from among the prominent friends of agriculture. Subsequently the 

 Hoard of Agriculture was made a Board of Overseers of the College. 



It having thus been decided that the farmers were to enjoy the benefits v 

 of an independent, professional school, its precise character and location 

 came under consideration. The law required that it should be called the 

 Massachusetts Agricultural College, from which it must be inferred that 

 the Legislature designed it to hold a prominent position among our educa- 

 tional institutions. The course of study and instruction was obviously in- 

 tended to be superior, at least in some respects, to that of our existing 

 public schools, and to secure the proper establishment of the College upon 

 a basis satisfactory to the people, it was required that the location, plan of 

 organization, and course of instruction, which might be adopted by the 

 trustees, should be approved by the Governor and Council, before any de- 

 cisive steps were taken for its erection. 



President Henry F. French, having given the subject of agricultural 

 education a great amount of attention, and having visited the principal 

 schools and colleges of this country and of Great Britain, prepared a plan 

 for the establishment of the College at Amherst which was unanimously 

 adopted by the trustees and approved by the Governor and Council. 



An excellent farm of nearly four hundred acres having been purchased 

 in the valley of the Connecticut, and suitable buildings completed, the 

 College received its first class on the second of October, 1807. On that 

 day thirty-three young men, averaging nearly eighteen years of age, most 

 of them sons of farmers, presented themselves for examination. The 

 growth of the institution, so far as money and members are concerned, 

 from that time to the present, has been constant and rapid to a degree 

 which has satisfied its most hopeful friends. Its estate, buildings and 

 equipment have cost more than $225,000, and it has a cash fund of $150,- 

 000. Its organization is now complete, and with a competent faculty of 

 instruction, and four classes of students, numbering in all one hundred and 

 twelve, it may, without any boasting, be affirmed that no institution in the 

 country, among all those endowed by the national government, offers better 



facilities for agricultural education than the Farmers' College of Massa- 

 chusetts. 



Having thus considered some of the more important facts concerning 

 the efforts made during the present century, by enterprising men of science 

 and political wisdom, for the advancement of agriculture, we come to con- 

 sider the obstacles to complete success in this last and noblest attempt to 

 increase the intelligence, wealth, power and popularity of the profession so 

 largely and so well represented here to-day. 



