

76 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



to affirm with more emphasis than ever before, that agricultural education 

 is feasible, and will prove useful beyond the dreams even of its earnest 

 advocates ; and if agricultural colleges ever prove a failure, it will be, not 

 for the want of sciences to teach nor of men to teach them, but for the 

 want of the sufficient patronage of the classes for whom these colleges 

 were organized. 



Allow me then, gentlemen and ladies, to express to you, plainlj' and 

 without concealment, my view of the causes, which, to-day, are hindering 

 the highest possible success of agricultural education, and to entreat your 

 attention to the possible means of their removal, and, through you, I wish 

 that I might address also the agriculturists of this State and country, upon 

 this matter, so important and so vital to their interests, as a class, and to 

 their standing among the people of this land. 



And first, let me carry back your thoughts for a moment to the discus- 

 sions and ideas which impelled the farmers of an earlier day to agitate 

 this question, and seek the establishment of schools especially devoted to 

 their interests. Were the hopes and expectations which animated them 

 mere chimeras of the brain? Did they blunder in believing that educa- 

 tion had blessings in store for this great department of human employ- 

 ments? Was that wide-spread agitation of- thought which pervaded 

 both Europe and America, in favor of a new form of education for agri- 

 culture and the other industries, without any just cause ? Was the urgent 

 and irresistible demand for colleges of agriculture and of the mechanic 

 arts, which assailed our National Congress, and extorted the grant for 

 their establishment, a popular blunder? Who dare affirm it? 



Do not philanthropy and patriotism and science all combine in the plea 

 for the education of the agricultural classes, and the improvement of their 

 art? Philanthropy pleads for that mightiest section of the grand army 

 of workers, the tillers of the soil. Nearly one-half of the entire indus- 

 trial population of the country belongs to this section. If education is a 

 boon; if its aid can lighten toil and enrich its products; if it can elevate 

 and refine and give new value to life, then that broad democratic maxim, 

 "the greatest good of the greatest number," demands that agriculture 

 should have its schools, its colleges, its teachings, its education, among 

 the noblest and richest that the power of man can provide. 



Patriotism pleads for it, as increasing public wealth, elevating public 

 character, and carrying higher intelligence among those who ever have 

 been and ever must be, the conservative power of the nation. In propor- 

 tion as the masters of the soil shall be guided by high intelligence, so 

 shall the nation be safe from the corruption which breeds in the great 

 cities, and would speedily destroy liberty itself, if not met by the purer 

 air and calmer thought of the country. 



And science itself needs the co-operation of the working classes to 

 increase its stores of facts, to extend its observation, to test its theories, to 

 detect its errors, and to stimulate it to higher.eflforts by the exhibition of 

 its utility, and by offering a substantial reward for its efforts. It demands 



