FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 115 



severely in the sciences? We must, or fail of our purpose. Pedagog- 

 ically speaking, it is impossible to successfully teach the application of 

 the sciences of the arts without a previous knowledge on the part of the 

 pupil of the fundamental principles and facts of the sciences themselves. 

 It is for this reason that short-course students of agriculture are so 

 serious a problem to the teacher. Some men who pretend to teach or 

 practice agricultural science, but who are ignorant of fundamentals, are 

 like a ship without a rudder — one never knows where they will land. 



Aside from a few expert processes, the mechanical or manual side as 

 well as 



THE BUSINESS SIDE OP FARMING 



can be better learned by experience on a farm that is being managed for 

 business purposes than on a college farm. The time in college is all too 

 short for the learning of principles and for the development of the man, 

 without giving time to those things which may be acquired more cheaply 

 and efficiently elsewhere. 



The young graduate, as he steps into the world, pauses to survey the 

 field before him. He has no capital, perhaps, and so can he be blamed 

 if he consents to sell his time to the highest bidder? What would you do 

 if in his place? 



Shall he go 'back to the farm as a hired servant? If he has broad acres 

 of his own or may acquire them, and loves the farm, if he can see the 

 great possible usefulness that lies before him as an apostle of enlightened 

 agriculture and the high standard of living that he may attain with the 

 peace and beauty and inspiration of nature all around him, then he should 

 return to his farm, and we give him our hearty w^elcome. No more use- 

 ful citizen can be found than he may become, and his meastire of recom- 

 pense and satisfaction will be all the larger because of his college train- 

 ing. 



It is certainly Utopian to expect a much larger proportion of college 

 educated men among farmers than in any other important industrial 

 class. I doubt if well-informed agriculturists, in passing judgment upon 

 other classes, are prepared to assert that the mechanics in our work- 

 shops, where intelligent, skillful labor, accompanied by more or less 

 knowledge of principles, is demanded, should generally be college gradu- 

 ates. They would not claim this of the commercial world. It is self- 

 evident that some mechanics and business men should be, or even must 

 be, highly trained, but it would be foolish to expect this of more than a 

 small minority. What farmers are not justified in claiming for these 

 others, they may not reasonably expect in their own ranks. Every call- 

 ing has its gradations of opportunity, with corresponding gradations 

 of encouragement for the investment of intellectual capital. No business 

 will ever be an exception to this rule. There are many openings in 

 agriculture — and these are on the increase — that offer encouraging recom- 

 pense to the man who has taken his baccalaureate degree, but on the 

 farm, as everywhere else, the law of supply and demand is in force. 



The considerations already presented to you make it clearly evident: 

 that the great bulk of the agricultural population will not in the future 

 any more than in the past come up to the agricultural college for an 

 education. Not even the short winter courses provided at some institu- 

 tions, and which are generally attended in a few staties, will secure a 



