PROF. SHEPARD ON AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS. 



87 



soon begins to appear, that to be college- 

 learnt, is to be farm-unlearnt. And I hard- 

 ly know of men more to be pitied, than 

 those who from feeble health or any other 

 cause, have failed in a professional or lite- 

 rary career (to prepare for whirh, the col- 

 lege course is chiefly intended) and who 

 are obliged to fall back upon the farm for a 

 livelihood. In all the practical labors of 

 husbandry, they seem to have lost the art 

 of taking hold of things by the smcfoth han- 

 dle ; and their blunders in live-stock, are 

 almost sure to make them the laughing- 

 stock of their neighbors. Now there is 

 nothing surprising in this, if we consider 

 the object of college education. The col- 

 lege is not intended for persons who are to 

 occupy themselves much with physical mat- 

 ters. Even the boys understand this per- 

 fectly well; and it is to be feared, that not 

 a few importune their parents to gain ad- 

 mission there from no higher motive, than 

 to get clear of muscular effort ; though it 

 is generally observed, that such are equally 

 shy of intellectual exertion. No : the col- 

 lege is a place for the training of persons, 

 who, if they are ever to work at all, must 

 do so, through the medium of mind, as 

 scholars, as statesmen, as clergymen, or in 

 the medical or legal profession. Nothing 

 can be more unreasonable than to suppose, 

 that we see the practical use of the sciences 

 to mankind, in the lives of our college gra- 

 duates. Why, the college course is chiefly 

 made up of a study of the literature and 

 philosophy of the ancients, to whom our 

 sciences were a dead letter, and of the ele- 

 ments of mathematics and geometry, to 

 which is added a sprinkling of metaphysics 

 and logic, and considerable drilling in 

 English composition and elocution. On 

 these studies, and good morals, the disci- 

 pline and the honors of the college turn. 

 Lectures are given indeed, on some of the 

 modern sciences, but less with a view to 

 their bearing on the arts of life, than to the 

 purpose of intellectual discipline and gene- 

 ral accomplishment. No teacher would be 

 tolerated, who should more than incidental- 

 ly allude to any common use, like that of 

 economical profit, that could be made of 

 them. The college is not the place for 

 learning rules of thrift. It pre-supposes a 

 degree of independence ; and in cases where 



this is not enjoyed, it takes it for granted, 

 that money-making is to be held as a se- 

 condary consideration with all who partake 

 of its "benefits. The college graduate is 

 never to seek glory in wealth, but in know- 

 ledge, and in usefulness of a lofty kind to 

 his fellow-men. This I take to be the true 

 theory of the college, and of literary life in 

 general. Both hold themselves at the most 

 respectful remove possible, from all contact 

 with matter, and the every day labors of 

 men engaged in the arts. I might perhaps 

 afford you an illustration of the truth of this 

 representation. A president of one of these 

 institutions, on being shown through the 

 physical department of another, the best 

 endowed in natural sciences of any in the 

 country, on taking leave of the distinguish- 

 ed professor, who had been his conductor, 

 begged to know of what conceivable use to 

 mankind, were all such provisions! Here 

 was a distinguished scholar, at the head of 

 an American college, who had got so com- 

 pletely away from matter, as not to be con- 

 scious, that a knowledge of its properties 

 was of the least utilit}' to mankind ! 



Take one other exemplification of the 

 difficulty, which the mere literary man ex- 

 periences, in estimating aright, the.-practi- 

 cal business of life. One of the most emi- 

 ne: t of American scholars, and at the same 

 a distinguished statesman, argued a short 

 time ago in Congress, against the employ- 

 ment of the Smithsonian fund, for purposes 

 of practical advantage, — using the word 

 practical here, in its common acceptation, 

 and of course, in opposition to its college 

 and literary use. He entertained the House 

 of Kepresentatives with a strain of fine 

 thoughts, expressed in lofty diction, in fa- 

 vor of appropriating the money, to the pur- 

 chase of a library. In the course of his 

 remarks, he insisted, that "a labor.:tory 

 was a mere charnel house, and that experi- 

 ments are but the dry bones of science." 

 He would direct the attention of mankind 

 away from matter " to those great subjects," 

 as he was pleased to style them, "which 

 are not bounded by the three dimensions, 

 which are not ponderable, not cognizable 

 by any of the senses." In the halls of the 

 American Congress, in the year of our Lord 

 eighteen hundred and forty-six, asked this 

 polished orator, in dead earnest, "What 



