TRAINING AT THE MICHIGAN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 1C5 



lug esthetic culture, I would mention Avalkin.Ej as being of highest importance. 

 As a nation -wo have well nigh lost the art of walking; we must either ride or 

 stay at home ; the possibility of walking socnis rarely to enter the American 

 mind. At the present moment I can recall only two, Thoreau and John Bur- 

 roughs, who among ns have in late times, fairly mastered this most desirable 

 accomplislinient. 



"I do not think I exaggerate," says John Burroughs, ''the importance or 

 the charm of pedestrianism, or our need as a people to cultivate the art. I 

 think it would tend to soften the national manners, to teach us the meaning of 

 leisure, to acquaint us with the charms of the open air, to strengthen and fos- 

 ter the tic between the race and the land. No one else looks out upon the 

 world so kindly and charitably as the pedestrian ; no one else gives and takes 

 so much from the country he passes through. * '•' Man takes root at 

 his feet, and at best is no more than a potted plant in his house or his carriage, 

 till he has established communication with the soil by the loving and magnetic 

 touch of his soles to it; then the tie of association is born; then spring those 

 invisible fibers and rootlets through which character comes to smack of the 

 soil, and which makes a man kindred to the spot of earth he inhabits." 



If earnest and energetic societies for the cultivation of the art of walkina: 

 could bo everywhere established, or perhaps still better, if departments of phys- 

 ical culture, — in which instruction in this art should be a leadino- feature, — 

 could be added to every institution of learning in the country, no one can doubt 

 that great good would result from it to the individual and to the nation. 



I know that it will be objected that mechanics, or more particularly farmers, 

 are already so over-burdened with labor that walking for recreation would be 

 wholly out of the question. At certain seasons of the year this may be true, 

 but on the other hand this is also true, that farmers, as a class, work more than 

 is needful or profitable. If they would only give more thought and system to 

 their profession, they might with absolute profit command a greatly increased 

 amount of leisure. Upon this point very much might be said, but I will 

 refrain from enlarging upon it here. 



It is not needful, however, that we should even attempt to consider all the 

 characteristics whicli go to make up a true education, either in its broad sense, 

 which relates to a life's achievements, or in the more restricted sense Avhich 

 relates simply to a course of instruction in tiie university or the college. I 

 have glanced at a few points which seem worthy of consideration ; but many 

 others would require discussion were we attempting fully to answer that im- 

 portant question as to "what knowledge is of greatest worth." Our educa- 

 tional system is not, to my mind, perfect at any point from the primary school 

 to the post graduate courses of our best universities. AVhile on the whole we 

 may well regard it as creditable and praiseworthy, tliere are, nevertlieless, many 

 defects to be overcome and improvements to be introduced. 



If now we were to test the course of instruction in this Institution as given to 

 its earlier classes as one of the elements of wliat we regard as the true educa- 

 tion, we find among some things to regret very mucli whicli warrants hearty 

 commendation. In the first place this Institution was among the first, if not 

 the first in the land to so shape its instruction as that it might have a distinct- 

 ive bearing upon the practical affairs of life. The sciences were pursued not 

 solely for their own sake, but also that a knowledge might be obtained of their 

 utility with reference to practical arts and industries. The old notion that 

 science ceased to be science when it sought to reach useful ends, was discarded. 



