214 ANNUAL REPORT 



we need to look out for is not lest farmers' sons should go into 

 other professions, but lest farmers, whether the sons of farmers 

 or not, should be uneducated and unfit for their work. And in 

 this view of the case, so long as the sons of farmers can receive 

 the benefits of the education in the State provided for the sons 

 of all other classes of people, and can receive special agricul- 

 tural education besides, if they desire it, I see no reason for 

 sensitiveness on the part of farmers because they have not a 

 separate college provided for the education of their sons, iso- 

 lated and segregated from the rest of the people of the State. 

 Such isolation, such education of a class of people apart from 

 others is undesirable and would be unhappy in its results even 

 to those for whose benefit it is sought, 



I know that the problem of agricultural education is one of 

 the most difficult of all educational jjroblems, because back of it 

 is a host of people who do not expect to go to the college for 

 an education, and yet insist that in some way the college shall 

 benefit them, help them to do better work and to get larger re- 

 turns. How the wishes of this large class can be met, except by the 

 publication of the results of experiments, by the holding of 

 farmers' institutes in all parts of the State, and by the education 

 of students who as practical farmers shall be examples of skilled 

 workers in agriculture, I do not at present see. If there be 

 other practicable methods, I am not unwilling to recognize 

 them, for no one, I am sure, can more heartily desire to do all in 

 his power to promote the interests of agriculture and of the 

 farmers of Minnesota than I. 



Gentlemen, we must have certainty and stability in counsels 

 in order [to insure the successful progress of educational work. 

 We can not plan wisely and put our plans into execution ener- 

 getically if it is to be a matter of uncertainty every time the 

 legislature meets whether we are to continue in existence as a 

 university or are to be mutilated and shorn of some of our de- 

 partments. We are doing well at present, but we can not rest 

 on what we have done; we can not be content with what we are 

 doing, without rapidly falling behind our sister states. The 

 noble science hall, just built by Kansas; the 1200,000 appro- 

 priated by the last legislature of Wisconsin for a fire-proof 

 building to replace the science hall consumed by fire; the liberal 

 appropriatiau of Nebraska for the department of botany, as 

 well as for others; the steady onward march of Michigan's great 

 university, all warn us that a liberal policy towards the univer- 



