88 



PROF. SHEPARD ON AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS. 



have our boasted researches taught us to 

 accomplish ia the industrial arts, ihat the 

 cunning workmen of Egypt and Tyre and 

 Greece could not do, three thousand years 

 ago ?" And to crown ths climax, he claim- 

 ed, that our independence was declared 

 and maintained by scholars ! Listen to the 

 declaration, ye shades of Washington — the 

 farmer and civil engineer, of Fraulclin — the 

 printer and electrician, and of Jefferson — 

 the man who has left this testimony of 

 scholastic pursuits, — "the business of life," 

 says he, " is with matter, that gives tan- 

 gible results ; handling that, we come at 

 the knowledge of the axe, the plough, the 

 steamboat, and everything useful in life ; 

 but from metaphysical speculations, I have 

 never seen one useful result." Fortunately 

 the argument of the scholar, on the occa- 

 sion, fell into something very like the labo- 

 ratory he so much abhorred, where it was 

 first analyzed, and then weighed in the 

 balance of common sense. And the result 

 of the whole was, that in spite of it, that 

 noblest bequest of a practical chemist, to a 

 practical people, was saved, from what 

 would have been little better, than a se- 

 questration. 



The time has fairly arrived, when society 

 should understand what it has a right to 

 expect from the college ; when it should 

 know this at least, that it is not the most 

 likely place to look for amelioration in the 

 practical arts, especially in that of agricul- 

 ture. The college has enough to do, to 

 qualify for head-work. There must be 

 some other institution, in which young men 

 can be taught to work on matter, as well as 

 upon mind. To send a lad to college 

 whom you intend to make a farmer, is put- 

 ting him on the wrong track. The four 

 years spent there, would be an episode, a 

 parenthesis in the preparation for active life 

 on a farm. I say not that it would disqua- 

 lify him from leading the life of a gentle- 

 man, provided his means were sufficiently 

 ample; but it would assuredly be a bad 

 thing for him, ever to take off his gloves on 

 a farm, after he had touched his diploma.* 



* In these remarks upon the inadequacy of the college pro- 

 per, for preparing persons for the practice of the arls,"l trust 

 that I shall not be thought warning in a proper regard for 

 these instiiutions. Having, either as pupil or teacher, passed 

 the greatest part of my life in connection with the college, I 

 can but accord to it, the highest respect and even filial affec- 



I should shrink from the attempt even, 

 to draw out the plan of such an institution, 

 as is required to meet the wants of this 

 greatest of all the branches of practical in- 

 dustry. To frame such a scheme, will de- 

 mand no small share of deliberation and 

 forecast. No institutions are now in exist- 

 ence, upon which they can be directly 

 modeled. In this slate of the case, it may 

 not perhaps be deemed impertinent for me, 

 to direct the attention of this audience, to 

 what has been done in Europe in behalf of 

 an allied art or profession, which sustains 

 a verjr close relation to agriculture. I al- 

 lude to that of mining. Like agriculture, 

 it requires the use of numerous sciences. 

 As the farmer must know his crops, toge- 

 ther with many other plants which are 

 either useless or noxious, so the miner must 

 be able to recognize his ores, and those as- 

 sociated mineral substances, which are 

 either worthless or injurious. As the farm- 

 er must understand his soils and subsoils, 

 and the connection of both with the rock 

 formations in which they originated, so the 

 miner must comprehend the various strata, 

 which include his veins and beds of ore. 

 The different processes emploj'ed in har- 

 vesting and preparing crops for the markets, 

 are in some sense, analogous to the raising 

 and dressing of ores ; while dvaining, sur- 

 veying, and architecture, are required in 

 both. Farming and mining both make a 

 constant and similar use of chemistry, in 

 the work of analysis. There is indeed this 

 difference, that the labors of the miner are 

 attended with much greater risks as to re- 

 muneration, and with greatly increased 

 dangers to health and life. But it is rea- 

 sonable, nevertheless, that institutions ex- 

 pressly contrived for the benefit of the 

 miner, and which have been nearly a cen- 

 tury in existence, should throw some light 

 upon those we would invent for the use of 

 the farmer. 



The most ancient of these institutions, is 



tion : but this veneration is solely on account of the impor- 

 tant, and truly noble end it accomplishes, in laying the foun- 

 dation of professional or literary eminence ; and not on ac- 

 count of its direct service to the manual arts. These it never 

 has embraced within its plan; nor is it easy to see how any 

 cliaiige can ever be made in this respect, which shall fully 

 answer the wants of practical men : although tliere is nothing 

 to prevent the existence of an agricultural school in immedi. 

 ale eoiMieciion with a college, whose scientific faculty might 

 even assist in a school of artS; and in this way, materially 

 abridge the expensivenesi of such an institution. 



