THE NEEDS OF AGRICULTURE. 



49 



always that good teachers and such facilities for illustration and comfort are 

 given as every school district, with the generous help of the State, is abun- 

 dantly able to furnish. 



We boast of our High Schools, our Colleges, our University, and well we 

 may, for they are worthy of praise ; but do we not too often forget that all 

 of these are dependent upon the common schools. Without these feeders to 

 the higher institutions of learning, there would be little need of colleges 

 and University. It is true that from year to year we are sending out a large 

 number of graduates ; but the tendencies of the times and their college sur- 

 roundings too often lead them away from the farm — to believe that agricul- 

 ture does not offer so wide, useful and honorable a field of labor as the col- 

 lege-bred man has a right to expect. And so the towns and cities are over- 

 crowded with men who might have made respectable farmers, with proper 

 direction, but too often live from hand to mouth in the professions, and 

 have pretty hard work to get the hand to the mouth at that. 



In the report of 1883 the Superintendent of Public Instruction gives the 

 following statistics as to the occupations of the 2,992 graduates from the 

 University of Michigan for the ten years ending July 1, 1879, and also from 

 the Agricultural college for the same time. 



SUMMARY OF OCCUPATIONS. 



University. 



Bookkeeper 



Assayist 



Artist _. 



Architects -. 



Bankers 



Clergymen . 



Superintendents of City Schools 



Journalists 



College Professors 



Business Men 



Civil Engineers 



Teachers 



Druggists 



Unknown 



Physicians 



Lawyers 



Farmers, or one for every 150 gradu- 

 ates 



1 

 1 

 1 



8 



16 



30 



31 



31 



46 



94 



78 



118 



151 



244 



753 



1,370 



19 



Agr'l College Ornduatrx for the ten yearsup to 1879 



Related to Industrial Arts : 



Farmers 69 



Fruit Culturists 8 



Professors of Agriculture or related 



sciences 10 



Instructors in Agriculture or re- 

 lated sciences 3 



Students in Agriculture or related 



sciences - . 2 



Agricultural Editors 3 



Apiarists 4 



Engineers 4 



Architect 



Landscape Gardener 



Veterinary Surgeon 



Sergeant, U. S. Signal Service 



Machinist 



— 108 



Business men 26 



Teachers 18 



Lawyers and Students of Law 16 



Physicians and Students of Medicine. - _ 9 



Ministers and f-^tudents of Theology 3 



Editor of Newspaper 1 



Deceased 5 



186 



Nothing reflects more credit on the Michigan Agricultural College or has 

 given it more reputation abroad than the fact that so large a number of the 

 graduates are true to the spirit and teachings of Alma Mater and are 

 engaged in agricultural pursuits. 



But suppose that a fair proportion of the graduates of oi>r university, 

 colleges and high schools should engage in agriculture. The last report of 

 the Superintendent of Public Instruction, for 1884, gives the number of 

 graduates from the University as 401 in the classical, medical, law and civil 



