STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 81 



LOCATION, WITH REFERENCE TO ITS LEADING OBJECTS. 



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It having been determined that the leading objects of the college shall 

 be the education of its students in such a manner as practically to pre- 

 pare them for the great work of intelligently improving and developing 

 the mineral and agricultural resources, it naturally follows that its loca- 

 tion should be such as will best accommodate these great industries. It 

 should be as near as possible the geographical centre between them, 

 taking into consideration facilities for reaching that centre by eas}' and 

 rapid conveyance from all or the principal mineral and agricultural por- 

 tions of the State. It should be easily accessible to the mines, for the 

 reason that those students who are pursuing a course of study with 

 reference to 7nining as an occupation, should frequently be accompanied 

 to tlie mining regions by their teachers, that they may see and practi- 

 cally be taught the application of the facts and principles they have been 

 learning from their text books and in the classrooms. This advantage 

 will constitute the principal difference between teaching mineralogy, 

 geology, and mining, as applicable to California, in an institution estab- 

 lished with especial reference to these objects here, and in teaching the 

 same subjects in an Industrial College in Germany. The practical illus- 

 tration and real business operations of life, upon the very ground on 

 which the student is to engage in those operations, when he shall have 

 graduated and is seeking fields of employment, is what should be ever 

 kept in mind in the management of an Industrial College. If we lose 

 sight of this great principle, and fail to so locate the institution that 

 these advantages may be enjoyed by those who desire them, we abandon 

 the very objects for which the college is to be established. The practical, 

 living experience of the miner, and the extensive reading and general 

 knowledge of the professor of geology, mineralogy, and metallurgy, 

 must be constantly associated together, and go hand in hand, or our 

 Industrial College will fail to present to the miner any advantages over 

 an ordinary literary institution. 



When we consider the location with reference to the interests of agri- 

 culture, we find reasons, if possible, of a more forcible character than 

 those above named in reference to the mining interests — reasons that 

 would determine us most positively to reject some localities and accept 

 others. To teach agriculture in any country practically, it is evident we 

 must have the soil to do it on, for agriculture is the cultivation of the 

 soil; consequently there must be a farm connected with the college. 

 Not as a model farm, in the usual acceptation of the term; not as a. 

 means of affording the students the opportunity of paying a portion of 

 their expenses by labor, though as an incident to the main object this 

 opportunity may and should be afforded; not for the sake of furnishing, 

 ibr the student manual labor to preserve a robust constitution and good 

 health, though this, too, will be an incident, and an important one; but 

 the real or principal object of the form should be to illustrate by practice 

 the principles and sciences the student learns in his text books and reci- 

 tation rooms. The ftirm should bear the same relation to the studies 

 pursued that the experimental laboratory does to the study of chemistry. 

 In fact, it should and will serve as an extensive laboratory, and the one 

 prepared by nature, and in which the student will be called upon to make 

 his agricultural experiments when he goes out into the world as a teacher 

 to teach the generality of farmei"s the lessons he has learned at the col- 

 lege — the field in which he should bo prepared to take the lead and 



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