ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT ABBOTT. 



389 



put it all into the afternoon, as early as we think the laws of health 

 will admit, so that, if they need rest after the three hours' labor, 

 they can get it before tea, and be refreshed for their evening tasks ; 

 for if you take growing boys into the lecture room after they have 

 been laboring three hours, they are apt to be sleepy, whether they 

 have had their dinner or not, aijd especially if they have. They 

 are young and growing, and if you take them directly in, after 

 three hours' work, they are not in a condition to receive that bene- 

 fit from the lecture or the class-room exercises that they otherwise 

 would. They go out at half-past one, and remain until half-past 

 four. 



Question. Does it interfere with their intellectual advancement, 

 as compared with other colleges where the system is not in- 

 troduced ? 



Pres. Abbott. I cannot tell. If a person merely wished intel- 

 lectual advancement, he might get the same benefit to his physical 

 system by gymnastic exercise. If he were compelled to take it, 

 or took it voluntarily, he might do better than if he worked in the 

 field ; but I think three hours' labor a day is vastly better for the 

 boys than the no-labor system which is adopted by nearly two- 

 thirds of the boys who go to college. If I were asked for the best 

 possible system to save time, I should say voluntary exercise in 

 the gynasium, under instruction. Our system does not interfere 

 with the advancement of the students so much as the method of 

 taking exercise or not, as it happens. 



Our boys work cheerfully ; we have no trouble about that at all. 

 They are all required to work ; it is in the law of the State, and 

 consequently nobody asks exemption from the rule. As to the 

 value of their labor, I think the farm, taken as a farm simply, 

 could be run more cheaply without their labor than with it. And 

 yet the boys work well ; but they labor only three hours. It is a 

 set time, and when the bell strikes, it is necessary for them to 

 stop ; they leave the work where it is, unless in case of necessity. 

 Our boys are always ready to finish a job if they are asked, but 

 we do not ask it unless the case is one of real necessity, for the 

 time is theirs, and they need it ; consequently, at the end of the 

 set time they drop whatever they have been at work upon, and 

 one or two hired men have to come in and take it up where they 

 leave it, and put things to rights. Then we are obliged to send 

 skilled men into the field with them to make their labor profitable 

 to them. If you send out a parcel of boys together, they may 



