AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. S87 



Growers Association, lie gave his views upon agricultural 

 education, taking the ground, in common with other prac 

 tical minds &quot; that the young men most earnest in getting an 

 education, although farmers sons, look forward to other 

 pursuits than farming as the goal of their desires. These 

 are evidently neither of them necessary results; but they 

 must affect our theory and practice of agricultural educa 

 tion. 



&quot; Those of us who have gone through the prescribed drill 

 of our college courses have generally formed the habit of 

 getting our knowledge by the study of text-books, rather 

 than by original research, or even by the accurate observa 

 tion of things. We have formed sedentary habits. We 

 would rather read up Allen on the points of the short 

 horn than go to the field and examine the animal. In 

 other words, whilst the farmer s is an active and practical 

 life, we have been educated to, and formed the habits of, a 

 literary and sedentary life. 



&quot; The education of the farmer, and probably that of all 

 men engaged in active pursuits, should be conducted with a 

 view to avoid it. So far as possible, text-books should be 

 used mainly for reference, and * object- teaching substituted. 

 Botany should be studied by dissection of the plant in the 

 class-room, or by rambles in the fields and forests. Chem 

 istry should be taught, as it now is getting to be, by imme 

 diate resort to the laboratory. If breeds of animals be the 

 topic, the lecturer should have them at hand, and take his 

 class to study their points ; if pruning, the students should 

 go to the orchard and see the work done, and help do it; if 

 varieties of fruit, the fruit itself, or casts of it, should be at 

 hand, and the tree that bears them in the experimental or 

 specimen orchard.&quot; 



