1883.] THE STORES AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL. 19 



The object of the School is very distinctly set forth in the Act 

 estabhshing it. It is " The education of boys .... in such 

 branches of scientific knowledge as shall tend to increase their 

 proficiency in the business of agriculture." You will observe that 

 these words distinctly prescribe a certain class of studies, and by 

 implication exclude others. I think no one will dispute that this 

 limitation is a wise one. The business of farming, more than most 

 others, brings its votaries into direct contact with nature and re- 

 quires of them a knowledge, or at least an observance, of those laws 

 of nature which it is the mission of natural science to discover and 

 expound. Any school for the education of farmers' boys, there- 

 fore, which ignores or neglects the natural sciences is fatally de- 

 fective. It may give a good education, but it is not a good educa- 

 tion for the farmer. 



Furthermore, I think a practical trial would be sufficient to con- 

 vince any one that if he hoped to gain, in a reasonable time, 

 any knowledge of natural science in its application to agriculture 

 beyond the merest smattering of " Newspaper science," he must 

 devote himself pretty exclusively to the work, and consent to 

 forego to a large extent the advantages derivable from other lines 

 of study, however great in themselves. Such, at least, has been 

 our experience with our students thus far. 



Let us, then, clear the way to a statement of what the Storrs 

 Agricultural School is, by considering very briefly what it is not. 



It is not "a little college." Neither its studies nor its methods 

 are collegiate in their character. There are colleges in abundance, 

 good, bad, and indifferent, for those who desire them; colleges 

 pure and simple, and colleges with all varieties of attachments, 

 agricultural included ; agricultural colleges, too, where it is some- 

 times difficult to say whether the agriculture or the college is the 

 attachment — whether the tail waggles the dog or the dog the tail. 

 The Storrs Agricultural School does not propose to enter the lists 

 with them. . 



It is not a scientific school in the common acceptation of the 

 term. Its pupils study science, not for its own sake, but for the 

 uses they can make of it in one particular occupation. 



On the other hand, it is not a school for the benefit of those who 

 are not smart enough to go to coUege or to a scientific school. In 

 its own field and in its own way it offers fully as great an oppor- 

 tunity for the use of natural endowments of mind and for hard 



