STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 383 



University of Minnesota eaters his name in the department he prefers. If he enters 

 the school of agriculture he will go into the classes of physics, botany, chemistry, 

 etc., with all the others, whether in the classical, scientific or his own department. 

 All the students receive the same advantages. If the boy wants to study civil 

 ■engineering he goes into the classes in mathematics with all the others. In this 

 way economy in teaching is secured, the work being accomplished thus instead of 

 having, for instance, as many professors in mathematics as there are departments. 

 Of course one man can just as well instruct fifty students as five. 



The specific work belonging to the Department of Agriculture is divided into two 

 parts, the theoretical and the practical. 



When I took charge of this department of the State University, and looked over 

 the field, I found not only in Minnesota but in many other states of the uni. n, the 

 appliances were furnished, but the boys to avail themselves of the appliances were 

 not there. Minnesota is not alone in this respect. Yale College that has an organ- 

 ization of over a hundred years, and has sent out its graduates all over the face of 

 ^he earth, with its splendid equipment and provision for collegiate instruction, has 

 graduated but six students in agriculture since 1864; but while the University of 

 Minnesota has not a very large class of young men that have enrolled their names 

 in the college of agriculture, among the 300 or more students in the university, 

 over one-half come from the farm, and it is the farmers' sons and the farmers' 

 ■daughters who are receiving the benefits of this institution. 



Upon taking charge of the department of agriculture, I found one of the very first 

 things necessary was to furnish the means for giving .students a practical knowledge 

 of agriculture in all its branches, and that is the work that has occupied my time 

 and attention for the past four years. The methods of instruction in all depart- 

 ments have materially changed within the past half century. For instance, in the 

 department of chemistry, look what a wonderful change has been wrought in every 

 detail. I can remember hearing my father say that all the chemistry he got in his 

 college course was from a few pages in the back part of the old treatises on natural 

 philosophy; he never saw a single quart . of oxygen or hydrogen made. After 

 studying chemistry in that way, a student knew nothing about it; even when I had 

 my first lessons in that science I remember very little of it except sitting thirty feet 

 away from the laboratory table, and seeing the professor perform these experiments. 

 That is all we got of chemistry twenty-five or thirty years ago. Now, the student 

 enters the laboratory, performs all these experiments with the elements, and then 

 compounds, etc , and becomes thoroughly familiar with every detail of the labora- 

 tory. Now, there isn't a well organized institution in the United States that 

 pretends to teach chemistry in any other way. At the University practical chemistry 

 is taught in this manner. Every student is obliged to take up the analysis of com- 

 pounds, and thoroughly familiarize himself with every element and with all the 

 details of every experiment, so that when he has got through he knows something 

 about it. That is the mode of teaching chemistry to-day. It is educating the mind 

 and educating the hand and developing his powers of observation, and calling out 

 his judgment; it is educating, it isn't stuffing. The same method is adopted in the 

 department of engineering. 



The science of engineering is taught by familiarizing the student with the work- 

 shop and the field. He selects his materials, puts up the structure, runs his line of 



