158 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



the boys back to the farm ; we now make a four years require- 

 ment as tliey come from the common schools at the age of 

 fifteen years. In some institutions the agricultural course is 

 only three years. Our institution started out with a course 

 only two years long. But experience seems to show that a 

 short course is a damage to the farm. That is to say, we can- 

 not depend on the common schools to give us boys who 

 have had the kind of preparation we would like. Therefore 

 we have to do a good deal of educating ourselves, and even 

 a four years course is all too short a time in which to com- 

 plete, on top of the average education received in our public 

 schools, the education which we think is necessary. As a 

 matter of fact, though, we have really shortened our course 

 for many students to three years. That is to say, under the 

 present plan a boy will be back again on the farm at eighteen 

 or nineteen, whereas before he would not be back until he 

 was nineteen or twenty. This is a modification which I think 

 is well calculated to promote the efficiency of the institution 

 and increase the number of students. 



Suppose you live in a town where you have a good high 

 school. Or suppose you have a boy who has a scientific 

 bent, one towards agricultural science in particular. To 

 what institution is he to go in order to get that special 

 scientific training if he does not go to the Connecticut Agri- 

 cultural College? Of course, I am confining the matter to 

 this State. He could go to some other agricultural college 

 and get that training, and students have been in the habit of 

 doing that, and such students have been placed to the credit 

 of these other institutions. 



It was high time to change all that. So we said if there 

 is a boy in one of our high schools who is inclined toward 

 agricultural science he can be admitted at any point in our 

 course where he is fit to enter. Suppose he is fifteen when 

 he graduates from a four years course in the high school, 

 and has been well trained there. The probability is that such 



