FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 55 



THE PURPOSE OF AN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



DR. HOWARD EDWARDS, AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



Around this subject, as in fact around all educational topics, cluster a 

 number of varying and even conflicting opinions, and it is idle for me 

 to hope that all or even the majority of those who hear me tonight will 

 agree with the views that I shall present. Nevertheless, a long and some- 

 what varied service in agricultural colleges, a favored position for the 

 study of the educational problems involved, and the frequently recurring 

 necessity for discussion and consultation on all the fundamental features 

 of such schools, have given me some degree of confidence in the justice 

 and value of my conclusions, and move me to ask your attention while 

 I lay them before you. 



In the discussion you will kindly bear in mind that most agricultural 

 colleges, and our own in particular, have half their equipment, teaching 

 force and students in a mechanical department. The mechanical depart- 

 ment of the Michigan Agricultural College is enthusiastic, successful and 

 thorough in this kind of work, and its graduates are eagerly sought for 

 by factories, shops and the like. I should like to make some boast of 

 this feature of our college and indicate the magnitude and importance of 

 its work. But the audience present and the subject assigned me seem to 

 demand that I speak entirely of agricultural education, and so, with no 

 intentional derogation either of the importance or magnitude of the 

 mechanical side of the college, I shall confine my remarks to the Agricul- 

 tural College as such. 



If I am restricted to owe purpose, purpose in the singular number,] shall 

 say that the purpose of an agricultural college is to elevate by education 

 the status of farming — to enable it to keep pace with the progress of the 

 age — to be to it and do for it what the normal school does for teaching, 

 the naval school for navigation, the theological school for preaching, or 

 the medical school for the healing art. 



In attaining this end there are three ways through which it works, and 

 I place them in their order of importance, as I see it. 



(1) By educating for farming boys and girls that desire to be farmers; 

 (2) by helping with short and special courses those that, having already 

 engaged in life's work, find themselves because of insufficient prepara- 

 tion or changed circumstances, competing at a disadvantage, and- (3) by 

 dignifying the profession of agriculture. 



Let us now consider briefly the methods by which it accomplishes these 

 three results, taking them up in the order I have named: 



BOYS AND GIRLS TOGETHER. 



(1) To educate the boy and girl who look forward to life and work on 

 the farm as their future occupation. I have intentionally included the 

 girls in this class, and for several reasons. The farmer's wife is as 



