90 



versities educate farmers," they ask. The answer is, " No, they edu- 

 cate men away from the farm." 



Summary of occupations of the graduates of Michigan Agricul- 

 tural College, from State Reports, eighteen hundred and seventy-six: 



Farmers 42 Physicians 2 



Fruit culturists 7 Lawyers 6 



Engineers 4 Clergyman 1 



Mechanic 1 Editors 2 



Machinists 2 Students of law 7 



Apiarist 1 



Druggists 4 



Professors and instructors in other agri- 

 cultural colleges 11 



Teachers..-- 13 



Students in special sciences 3 



Clerks, agents, etc 8 



Students of medicine 3 



Grocers 2 



Merchant 1 



Deceased 4 



Total 124 



These statistics do not vary materially from those of other colleges 

 strictly agricultural, as Maine, Massachusetts, Iowa, and Kansas. 



Do colleges graduate farmers? No : they educate men away from the farm. Of six hundred 

 and twenty-two graduates of Harvard in twenty-four years, whose callings were known, not 

 one was put down as an agriculturist. Of one thousand seven hundred and seventy-two grad- 

 uates of Yale in twenty years, whose occupation was known, sixty-one were farmers. Of one 

 thousand two hundred and fifty-four at Dartmouth, not one. Of all together, less than one and 

 one-half per cent. — [Report of Michigan State Board of Agriculture. 



The result of these efforts to create a truly agricultural school appears in the fact that in place 

 of the one and one-half per cent, of graduate- going to farming, as from other colleges and uni- 

 versities, forty-two percent, have gone to farming, fruit, raising, and the nursery business, as 

 their chief and only business. Diligent inquiry has failed to make it appear that the students 

 imbibe any habits of extravagance, or of a theorizing practice, as some have feared. All the 

 graduates stand respectably in their several callings, and not a few of them very high. — [Presi- 

 dent Abbott, before the Michigan House of Representatives. 



Professor Joseph Harris, so well known as a scientific writer in the 

 American Agriculturist, as editor of the Geneva Farmer, and as one 

 of the best practical farmers in the State of New York, says : 



When I was appointed Professor of Agriculture in Cornell University, I visited the Michigan 

 Agricultural College for the purpose of ascertaining their method of conducting experiments. 

 I wanted to see what they were doing, ami how they did it. As yet our Agricultural Colleges 

 had done very little for agriculture. Their work had been theoretical and had settled nothing, etc. 

 The Michigan Agricultural College is an exception to this dark picture. It now stands at the 

 head of all similar institutions, and is an honor to the State and the country at large. Their 

 work has been planned with great thought: theirs are not haphazard experiments. We want 

 truth, and this the Michigan Agricultural College gives us. 



These examples might be increased, but as the point under con- 

 sideration is the duty of this Agricultural Society to the agricultural 

 education of this State, I think enough has been said to show that 

 this duty has been neglected, and that while the income of the Con- 

 gressional grant for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts, 

 now amounting to fifty-six thousand dollars per annum, is amply 

 sufficient to give us such a working agricultural eollege as they have 

 in Michigan and Massachusetts, we are ourselves to blame for being 

 without one. It can hardly be questioned that the influence of rural 

 surroundings is better calculated to foster a love for their pursuits 

 than those of large commercial cities, and that the time has come 

 when the relative importance of the agricultural interest to the State 

 makes it desirable to establish at least one institution wholly devoted 

 to instruction in this business. Without impugning the motives of 



