ADDKESS OF PRESIDENT ABBOTT. 391 



half year he has trigonometry, and after trigonometry, surveying; 

 and our students are sent for far and wide, to run lines and settle 

 boundary questions. The next year they go into chemistry and 

 botany; and after going through with the text-book in botany, 

 they continue the study thi'ough lectures and investigations into 

 all the more important plants, stopping a good while upon the grass 

 family. All this time they are also at work. Then they have hor- 

 ticulture, and have two or three books for reference ; and they see 

 the operations, and they perform them. When they come into the 

 Junior class, they have entomology and zoology; and in the Senior 

 class, before they graduate, they have another course in agricul- 

 ture, more advanced than the first. They attend lectures during 

 the whole time, and when they get through and go home, it is 

 natural to suppose that more of these boys, farmers' sons, so edu- 

 cated and so trained, with physical strength and habits of labor, 

 will go into agricultural pursuits, than would do so if they went to 

 a college where the whole current of feeling was different. I do 

 not see how it could possibly be otherwise. But then, the facts 

 are the things to look after, and I gather them up as I happen to 

 see them. If I had my notes here I could give several important, 

 though not a very large number of facts ; but they all point the 

 same way. 



Question. Have the students the privilege of choosing their 

 work ? 



Pres. Abbott. They have not, as yet; if the college was further 

 advanced so that we could, my own impression is, that it would be 

 better, after the first year, to let the student choose his labor, and 

 study to correspond. That would make him more perfect in some 

 line when he graduates. For instance, if he chooses chemistry, 

 let him displace some other studies, and become more advanced in 

 that; so too, if he chooses horticulture; or stock breeding. My 

 own impression is, that a school more advanced than ours might 

 give them that choice, but we have not done it. 



Our method is simply this : The horticultural department, em- 

 bracing gardens, lawns, the green-house, orchards, and the like, is 

 under the Professor of Botany, not under the Professor of Agri- 

 culture, and we give him one-third of the students ; that third 

 always embracing the Sophomore class. We give the farm the 

 other two-thirds, and that must always embrace the entire Junior 

 class. This we do so that the Sophomores, under the Professor of 

 Botany and Horticulture, may be with him the whole year, and if 



