114 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



ing, as it was sneeringly termed. While this attitude has been modified, 

 you will still find, if at farmers' Institutes you enter into conversation 

 with young men, prospective farmers with a good outlook, that they have 

 serious doubts whether after all it will really pay to spend four years at 

 the Agricultural College in preparation for the life of a farmer. One 

 cause of this doubt is that these young men have no conception of scien- 

 tific truth or its value. They have not turned the first page of the book 

 of nature. They have never been shown the law and order that are every- 

 where about them, and therefore they do not see how surely added power 

 comes to any man's life when he can understandingly control and direct 

 the forces of nature. The early home training in part, but more espe- 

 cially the common school training, has been responsible for this ignorance 

 about the most important part of human knowledge. 



The colleges of agriculture have not only had laid upon them the bur- 

 den of teaching applied science in a satisfactory manner, but also the 

 greater task of creating a demand for the education which they have 

 offered. 



There is little occasion for wonder, then that so few students have 

 been graduated from courses in agriculture in some states. To be sure, 

 your own institution has been a somewhat notable exception to the ex- 

 perience of others. Doubtless this success is due in part to the fine equip- 

 ment and excellent management of the college. But do not suppose 

 that I propose to measure the value in success of agricultural colleges 

 merely by the number of their graduates that are farmers. I shall refer 

 later to other benefits. 



In the second i)lace, the charge is often made that agricultural colleges 

 educate men away from the farm. 



There is little ground for the suggestion that the teachers in agricul- 

 tural colleges are not sympathetic toward their students returning to the 

 farm. If there is fault anywhere within the colleges, it must be chiefly 

 with the courses of study. Let us consider these. 



The most carefully elaborated of such courses with which I am familiar 

 are based upon three fundamental propositions: 



1. That all young men in college should be taught something of lan- 

 guage^, political science and philosophy. 



2. That thorough and extended instructign should be given in the 

 natural sciences. 



3. That the technical instruction should consist mainly in pointing out 

 the relations and applications of science to agriculture, with more or less 

 training in certain expert methods. v 



It is important to test the soundness of these fundamental proposi- 

 tions, because, if they are defensible, we are bound to accept the conse- 

 quences of their adoption. 



Will the intelligent agricultural masses consent, even in theory, to 

 divorce their calling from a knowledge of these intellectual and spiritual 

 conceptions which are the glory of the human mind and soul? These 

 questions need no reply from me. The common judgment of humanity 

 has answered them long ago. We are bound to freely open to all young 

 men who seek college halls the storehouse of thought and knowledge, in 

 order that, without regard to their proposed callings, they may under- 

 stand their political, intellectual and spiritual relations. 



Again, shall we train the four-years agricultural college student 



