WHAT IS AGRICULTURE ? 341 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 



BY C. O. PERKINS. 



Wo assume that by Agriculture is meant the cultivation of 

 the soil, so as to make it productive of the largest returns ; and 

 that, by Education, is meant the cultivation of the faculties, so as 

 to enable them to reach the highest attainments. And who can 

 measure the power which the educated mind has acquired, and 

 is destined to acquire, over the material world ? In the popular 

 use of the term, agriculture includes the rearing and care of 

 animals, and the growth and improvement of vegetable and 

 cereal produce. And, in a similar use of the term, education 

 implies the development and improvement of all the faculties of 

 man. How, then, shall we best effect these ends ? How educate 

 men to become agriculturists ? 



Agricultural education does not receive its due share of 

 attention in our institutions of learning. The branches of study 

 which are chiefly pursued there have no tendency to create or 

 foster a taste for agricultural life and labor. Yet, without such 

 taste, no amount of school instruction will be sufficient to make 

 the farmer's occupation pleasant or successful. If, then, we 

 would promote agricultural education, we must first create a 

 taste for rural life and employments. Socrates said : "Agricul- 

 ture is an employment the most worthy the application of man ; 

 the most ancient and most suitable to his nature. It is the 

 common nurse of all persons in every age and condition of life. 

 It is the source of health, strength, plenty and riches ; and of 

 a thousand sober delights and honest pleasures. It is the mis- 

 tress and school of sobriety, temperance, justice, religion ; and, 

 in short, of all virtues, civil and military." Franklin said : 

 " The farmer has no need of popular favor. The success of 

 his crops depends only on the blessing of God upon his honest 

 industry." Washington said : " I know of no pursuit in which 

 more real and important service can be rendered to any country 

 than by improving its agriculture. A skilful agriculture will 

 constitute one of the mightiest bulwarks of which civil liberty 

 can boast." And others have said : " No class of society have 

 within their reach so many of the elements of human enjoy- 

 ment as the independent tillers of the soil." " Of all the occu- 

 pations in which men engage for the purpose of gaining a 



