LECTURES AND ESSAYS READ AT INSTITUTES. 329 



was common to all in earlier times is passing away. The rich man will 

 become richer, and the poor man poorer than now. There are not so many 

 40-acre farms now as there were 30 years ago ; there will not be so many 30 

 years hence as now. 



In the time coming it will be necessary for the more well-to-do class to 

 lessen the number of hours now devoted to labor, and to give employment to 

 the more needful. The question arises. Has not that time already come? 

 And to what shall these hours be devoted, if not to scientific investigation and 

 literary culture? Then if we need any agricultural college at all, we need one 

 that will fit young men and women for the duties that the coming years are 

 crowding so fast upon them. We want more than this. We want one that 

 will give girls an out-door exercise — exercise in the orchard and garden. One 

 that will educate both muscle and brain. One that will conduce to mental 

 and physical vigor. One that will combine a knowledge of horticulture and 

 floriculture, with a discipline in essay writing, in elocution, in debate, and in 

 parliamentary usages, so that when they come home to us, they may be helpers 

 and instructors of the people in all that pertains to the art, the science, and 

 the politics of agriculture. So that when they become the owners and tillers 

 of the soil they may be qualified to represent the interest of agriculture in all 

 its departments. 



A professor in the medical department of the University of Michigan said 

 to his graduating class : " Young men, go out into the field of science and 

 glean, and when you have gathered sheaves bring them and lay them at the 

 feet of your alma mater." May we not ask the professors of our Agricultural 

 College to say to their students : Go into the fields of agriculture and glean, 

 and when you have gathered sheaves, lay them not at the feet of your alma 

 mater, but at the feet of those who, by long and patient tillage of the soil, 

 have contributed to the erection and continuance of this institution, and cease 

 not to labor for and with that people until they have attained to that degree 

 of literary excellence that will enable them to express themselves, and to 

 represent themselves in all that pertains to their avocation? Do this, and be 

 assured that we, on our part, will not cease to toil, nor to appropriate from 

 our gathered wealth that material aid that will make the college the full 

 realization of your endeavors. 



EDUCATION. 



BY K. L. TAYLOR. 

 [Read at Lapeer Institute.] 



There are few at the present time who have the temerity to deny that it is 

 the right and the duty of the State to make some provision for the education 

 of the rising generation, but there are many on every hand who, while admit- 

 ting this, are getting restive under doubts respecting both the quality of the 

 education actually provided, as well as the proper limit to be observed by the 

 State in its educational work. They are by no means few who intelligently 

 question the right of a community to educate the few at the expense of the 

 many ; and their number is increasing. You may hear everywhere questions 



