156 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



of you did have, but let me briefly try to answer that ques- 

 tion. We undertake to give scientific and practical agricul- 

 tural education up there. That is to say, we do not give 

 theory and nothing else. We do not give practice and noth- 

 ing else. We give both theory and practice, and in military 

 science we do the same thing. We have three hours a week 

 given to military tactics and drill. Now, in order to make 

 that most effective we give the boys some practice in scouting 

 and outpost duty. The other night outposts were thrown 

 out on three sides of the main college building and a scouting 

 party was sent off two miles. It was a dark night, and that 

 party was instructed to attack the building. They were to 

 storm and take the building by force if they could. We 

 had some lively firing on the skirmish line. Well, that 

 incident got into the Hartford Courant, and then a Mid- 

 dletown paper, the Penny Press, got hold of the Hartford 

 account and reprinted it. And then the editor said that the 

 people of the State of Connecticut would like to know what 

 military science had to do with agricultural education. I 

 mention this because this question may be an echo of that 

 question, and if the people of the State of Connecticut want 

 to know I should be glad to tell them. 



Now, we have no alternative. We are obliged to give 

 instruction in military drill. And that is a part, one of the 

 provisions, one of the far-seeing provisions of Senator Morrill 

 in the land-grant college act. You remember on the out- 

 break of the Civil War, recruits were drafted, and volunteers 

 were enlisted, and we had a big army on our hands that was 

 officered by men who did not know how to handle men at all. 

 We did not have enough men who had been drilled as soldiers 

 to get them into shape. The consequence was a great loss of 

 life, and Senator Morrill, in projecting the land-grant col- 

 leges, said, we will associate with these colleges military drill, 

 so that throughout the country, in every State and Territory 

 which chooses to avail itself of the benefits of the land-grant 



