J 44 . TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



is a matter of surprise that so few avail themselves of the proffered 

 boon; and especially is it a matter of surprise that of the scanty 

 number of students from the farm so small a proportion study agri- 

 culture as a profession — for it certainly offers inducements to the 

 aspiring youth not surpassed by any other occupation in life. Besides, 

 "man is but what he knoweth." 



It is a fact established in modern science, that force as a quantity 

 is constant, but is subject to change of form. Now, he who changes 

 in a fair proportion the form of force existing in wheat, grapes, pump- 

 kins, and other x^i^oducts of the soil; in cattle, horses, sheep, and 

 goats, into the form of brain force or useful knowledge, is a benefactor, 

 not only to his offspring and himself, but also to the public. The 

 progress of the age demands these changes in force forms — demands 

 earnest scientific work in all the departments of industry, especially 

 in that of agricultural chemistry. The machinery of agriculture 

 has attained a high degree of perfection, and it is a great error that 

 agricultural chemistry should be confined within such narrow limits 

 and be so little applied in practice. The impression is too common 

 among most classes that a collegiate education, instead of fitting one 

 better to perform the duties of life, fills him with self-conceit, chime- 

 ras, and impracticable notions. This fault, if existing at all, is not 

 in collegiate education, but is inherent in the individual who, inflated 

 with the idea that he is a genius, mistakes the glitter of polished brass 

 for the more subdued luster of pure gold; or who, like Ixion, lacking 

 a proper appreciation of his own abilities, allows his presumption 

 and indiscretions to mistake a cloud for Juno. When he shall have 

 completed a few turns upon the fiery wheel, he will be a wiser and a 

 better man, and a more useful member of the community than he 

 would be without education. It is by education that we more fully 

 appreciate how little we know and how much there is to be known. 

 The "Prince of Philosophers," when eighty -four years of age, remarked : 

 " I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem 

 to have been only like a boy playing on the sea shore, and diverting 

 myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or prettier shell 

 than ordinary, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered 

 before me." 



Education not only inspires modesty in the mind of its possessor, 

 but sharpens, strengthens, and disciplines the mental faculties for 

 concert of action under the direction of the will ; also matures the 

 judgment, so that it is better enabled to counsel the will aright. 

 Education ennobles the mind, and impresses upon it that all honest 

 occupations are honorable; that in labor, however humble, is de- 

 throned true dignity. Michael Angelo said "every block of stone 

 contained an imprisoned angel, awaiting some one to set it at liberty." 

 The educated man,_ fortified by consciousness of right, rises above all 

 petty conceptions of what might seem menial labor. What matters 

 it if he gathers rags on the streets ; so long as it is honest labor, it is 

 honorable. The gold for which he sells his rags is as pure and valu- 

 able as the gold which buys the rarest gems that adorn a diadem ; 

 perchance the rags are of greater intrinsic value than the gem, for by 

 labor they reappear in the form of paper, to whose fidelity is intrusted 

 most of the business relations of life — billions of wealth, the treasures 

 of art and of science, the records of events, the expressions of our 

 innermost thoughts, and the inspirations of divine wisdom and of 

 goodness. As the sturdy oak is developed from the acorn, the lofty 



