54 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



prepare him to engage in some useful employment. The- 

 cultivation of the soil and employments connected with the 

 cultivation of the soil are the employments most commonly 

 pursued in our country. Farming, market-gardening, or 

 arboriculture, landscape gardening, the production of fruits 

 and kindred employments are the fundamental employments 

 of the people of the United States. 



Every scientific principle taught in a college course must 

 be presented in some of its applications in order to be under- 

 stood. In the State College the applications are made in 

 the several departments of agriculture and in kindred em- 

 ployments. 



I here touch one important difference between the proper 

 work of the State College and the work of other institutions. 

 For instance, the principles of chemistry are the same wheth- 

 er taught in one place or in another. The illustrations and 

 the applications by which the principles are taught and un- 

 derstood are not the same in every institution. In the State 

 College the illustrations and applications relate to agriculture. 

 The same is true of botany. The same should be the method 

 of teaching every department of science taught in the State 

 College. There is also a department of agriculture for the 

 benefit of those who are to eno;age in farming. 



Is this plan in accord with the Act of Congress which pro- 

 vided for the establishment of the college ? 



The Act (I now quote its important section) provides, in 

 the several States, for " the endowment, support and main- 

 tenance of at least one college where the leadhig object shall 

 be, without excluding scientific and classical studies, and in- 

 cluding military tactics, to teach such branches of learning 

 as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such a 

 manner as the legislatures of the States may respectively 

 prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical edu- 

 cation of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and 

 professions of life." To the Act, as thus quoted, I will add a 

 paragraph from the pen of my deeply lamented friend and 

 predecessor. Dr. Chadbourne. He says : 



" No branch of learning peculiar to the old colleges was to be 

 necessarily excluded ; but the new colleges were to push on to the 



