206 ANNUAL liEPORT 



practical agriculture. Under these circumstances, I thought I 

 saw clearly that either there would be no students in agricul- 

 ture, or some special inducements must be held out for persons 

 to take that course. As we would not divert any of the stream 

 of students pouring into the university into the college of agri- 

 culture, the only thing to be done was to tap the stream nearer 

 its source before the current set too strong in the present 

 direction; and this we did. We have opened the doors of the 

 college of agriculture to students who would not and could not 

 enter the regular courses of study as heretofore guarded. We 

 have provided that students may enter the college of agriculture 

 upon passing an examination in geography, United States his- 

 tory, arithmetic, English grammar and composition — five of the 

 eleven subjects required for admission to the other departments 

 of the university — and as a result we have this year four regu- 

 lar students in agriculture, not one of whom could have entered 

 under the old arrangement. 



But for the agitation of the question of separating the college 

 of agriculture from the university, I have good reasons for be- 

 lieving we should have had five times as many. So long as this 

 agitation goes on it is impossible to work with the confidence in 

 the future necessary for the highest success; and no special 

 efforts, beyond a statement of the facts, have been made to se- 

 cure pupils for this course the present year. If we are per- 

 mitted to go forward with our experiment, I do not doubt its 

 success. I am certain that our present plan of starting the agri- 

 cultural department lower down in the course of study than 

 heretofore is the correct one. I am confirmed in this by the 

 deliberate judgment of Prof. William H. Brewer, professor of 

 agriculture in Yale College; and I am confident that our present 

 plan will commend itself thoroughly to every intelligent and 

 fair-minded farmer who will examine it. Under this plan the 

 studies i3ursued by the agricultural student to enable him to 

 graduate as a bachelor of agriculture are the following: Agricul- 

 ture, horticulture, botany, chemistry, agricultural chemistry, 

 natural philoso]3hy, anatomy, physiology and hygiene, entomol- 

 ogy, geology, mineralogy, practical mathematics, drawing, alge- 

 bra, geometry, trigonometry, surveying, shop work, history, zo- 

 ology, English political science, veterinary science and rhetoric. 

 I submit that the student who does good work in all these 

 branches fairly earns his degree; and that the University need 

 not be ashamed to confer a degree for this work, nor the student 

 be ashamed to receive the degree which represents this work. 



