FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 183 



Two afternoons each month each junior labors under the eye of the professor 

 iu nicer operations that cannot well be described in the class-room, and for 

 this work he receives no pay. 



Such is, in brief, the labor system in the Michigan State Agricultural Col- 

 lege. In the first years of the institution, as in its inception, the labor system 

 was looked upon chiefly as a means of enabling the sons of farmers of limited 

 means to work their way through college. "First and foremost," says Mr. 

 J. R. Williams, the first president of the institution, "the farm is the instru- 

 mentality by which students can earn a portion of their education. The remu- 

 neration, after the estate is subdued and rendered productive, ought chiefly to 

 board the student, leaving but few expenses incumbent upon him." The labor 

 still serves to render an education at the College comparatively inexpeosive, 

 especially as the long vacation occurs in winter, so that the same student whose 

 labor has helped to defray his expenses during the summer, has an opportunity, 

 by teaching a winter school, to earn still more. Not infrequently these two 

 sources of income nearly pay the expenses of students through the entire four 

 years' course of study. 



But after a year or two a different view of the uses of labor in the College 

 was taken. It was looked upon as necessary chiefly for its educational value. 

 The farm, gardens, orchards and other working; places of the College were 

 spoken of as similar in use to the chemical laboratory — a place for the practice 

 of the principles and rules taught in the class-room. The attempt is made 

 throughout the course to give an intellectual character to manual labor, to 

 make it illustrative of principles and suggestive of such inquiries as become a 

 mind awake to the beauties of the natural world, and the grandeur of the 

 forces, and the laws that explain the operations of nature. Labor may have 

 added to it this intellectual dignity, but it is necessary for purposes of moral 

 discipline that this work should not lose its character of hard labor. The 

 labor is not, therefore, like the unpaid practice of a chemical student in a 

 laboratory, nor of a young machinist in a technological scliool. The College 

 labor is continuous for four years, is applied where hired hands would otherwise 

 be employed, and is largely of the sort which the home education of the stu- 

 dent has prepared him to do well. He is usually qualified to earn Avages when 

 he comes to us. It would be unfair to impose so much hard labor without 

 recompense, although the educational purposes of the institution make it 

 advisable to require the work of all its students. 



It may at once be owned that tlie operations of the College Avould be much 

 simpler in the absence of a labor system for students. 



It is expensive. Officers who have charge of farm and gardens cannot give 

 so much time to class- room exercises as they could do without these cares. 

 Skilled foremen must be secured and paid and the quantity of tools increased 

 above the natural needs of a farm. AVhen also the work upon tlie farm or 

 horticultural department is planned for a force working but three hours a day, 

 and only in the afternoon, and with a direct view to the practice of students, 

 it is not possible to plan it at the same time with reference to the higlicst prolit. 



It is found also to be a very difficult tiling to manage a farm on this plan, 

 IIow to keep the students all at work advantageously both to themselves and 

 us is no easy problem, but it is one that presents itself daily to the managers 

 of the work, from about the first of March to near the close of November. 

 And this difficulty will increase upon us, as the finishing up of the drainage of 

 the farm and otiier permanent improvements leaves only the ordinary work 

 of the farm, and of the horticultural department to be done. Only great ad- 



