314 Transactions of the 



independence be fostered and encouraged, and because sucb students 

 are most likely to become valuable members of the agricultural com- 

 munity. All students are required to labor two hours on alternate days 

 with the skillful and intelligent superintendent of the farm. For all 

 additional work they ai*e paid twelve and a half cents per hour. It not 

 unfrequcntly happens that the best student earns the most money. 



What do they study at Amherst? The very first study of the first 

 year is human anatomy and physiology, with chemical physics, com- 

 mercial arithmetic, and bookkeeping. 



They have lectures on agriculture, considered first as an art and in its 

 relations to other pursuits, and are taught what education a man must 

 have Avho would succeed in it. Then they begin to examine the subject 

 of soils, their origin, nature, and varieties. Lectures through the term 

 on the laws of health, and daily military drill, "the school of the 

 soldier." The second term they begin chemistry, learn how soils are 

 improved by chemical and mechanical means; the philosophy of drainage, 

 irrigation and tillage; the chemistry of the improvement of metals, and 

 their use in the arts. With this, instruction in elocution; vocal music 

 and composition ; also, military exercises in the " school of the company." 

 With the third term closer habits of study and observation are formed. 

 We have more lectures on agriculture, on sterility of soils, causes and 

 remedies, rotation of crops. Now comes organic chemistry and lab- 

 oratory instruction, the close practical imitation of Nature's great 

 processes; daily recitations in algebra, geometry, and French, in elocu- 

 tion and reading. Infantry tactics are continued in the "schools of the 

 company and battalion." 



Three years more of orderly progression from this starting point of 

 symmetrical, rational development of every faculty of body and mind, 

 science and ai't moving hand in hand, every step made practical, ought 

 to make a Massachusetts farmer every inch a man. 



No sensible person can read the full curriculum of studies pursued, 

 especially history, political economy, commercial and rural law, etc., 

 and not be convinced of the immense advantages of the "new educa- 

 tion " over the old as a preparation for citizenship. 



The corps of instructors consist of eight full professors, with two 

 assistants, a gardener, and farm superintendent. There are fourteen 

 lecturers, men distinguished in special departments of science, as Pro- 

 fessor Hitchcock, on Comparative Anatomy; George B. Emerson, on 

 Arboriculture; James Law, on Diseases of Animals, etc., wlrb regularly 

 fill their appointed places in the course of study. 



The Massachusetts Agricultural College owes much of its prosperity 

 to a wise provision of its charter which gave a trustee to each county, 

 and made the appointment one for life unless removed for cause. The 

 representative of old Suffolk is Marshall P. Wilder; of Berkshire, Henry 

 Colt; of Bristol, Nathan Denfee, who has at his own cost erected a mag- 

 nificent conservatory upon the college grounds. Each county has given 

 its best man and one distinguished for zeal and knowledge in these pur- 

 suits, and thus some of the evils which State institutions labor under 

 are practically avoided. To show that a farm, vegetable garden, 

 orchards, etc., are not serious drawbacks to the financial prosperity of 

 agricultural colleges, even in their early beginnings, I append this item 

 of the Amherst records for eighteen hundred and seventy-one: 



Total credits of farm, including property inventoried January first, 

 eighteen hundred and seventy-one, credit for labor performed in grazing, 



