Address. 15 



are multitudes of studious men who toil more hours every clay than the 

 most diligent of farmers. 



Professor Agassiz while engaged in writing his great work upon the 

 glaciers, after spending some months amid the everlasting snows of the 

 Alps, remained for two whole years in gown and slippers, as it were in a 

 chrysalis state, before astonishing the world by his appearance as the author 

 of one of the most surprising and original scientific theories ever pro- 

 pounded. Who of us could be hired to perform one half the filthy, dis- 

 gusting work in collecting and handling fish, which Agassiz has voluntarily 

 done in acquiring that knowledge which has made him the greatest ichthy- 

 ologist of all the ages ? Who can realize while listening to his brilliant and 

 instructive lectures or conversation that he has been the most laborious and 

 zealous collector of specimens in zoology ever known ; or that he, of all 

 men, should have passed many of the best years of his life in studying the 



embryology and habits of the slowest and coldest blooded quadrupeds the 



turtles? When importuned to leave this apparently unprofitable and dis- 

 agreeable labor to engage in lecturing, which seems to most persons so 

 much more useful and delightful, and by which he could readily amass a 

 fortune, he answered with most unselfish devotion to the cause of science 

 "I cannot afford time to make money." Education certainly did not spoil 

 him for work, and the people need have no fear that their sons would be- 

 come unfit for labor, if sent to Amherst for instruction. 



But from present indications, it would seem that scientific attainments 

 and professional training for farmers arc not very highly esteemed in this 

 part of the Commonwealth. While the wisest statesmen and the most in- 

 telligent friends of progressve agriculture are profoundly impressed with 

 the necessity of speeial education for this business, and while institutions 

 for this purpose are being numerously established, and richly endowed in 

 all civilized countries ; while Prussia, whose power and resources now as- 

 tonish the world, is justly celebrated for the number and surpassino* excel- 

 lence of her agricultural schools; and while the Massachusetts Agricultural 

 College with its beautiful farm, its commodious buildings, its ample equip- 

 ment, its competent instructors, and its crowd of students, invites their at- 

 tention and patronage, what is the interest manifested in this momentous 

 subject by the citizens of Berkshire ? 



Precisely this: With a population largely engaged in cultivating the soil ■ 

 with three flourishing agricultural societies ; with three members of the 

 Board of Overseers and two of the trustees of the College residing amono- 

 them, and with the standing offer of a free scholarship to any suitable appli- 



