18 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 



a large freedom of action ; and now that its location seems to be settled, endeavor to make 

 it the best, as it was the first of all the existing institutions of the list in the United States. 



The history of education shows that the common school education depends upon the 

 higher. Colleges and universities are the fountains without which there would be no sup- 

 ply of proper streams through union and common schools. It is not a building up, higher 

 and higher from the primary ; it is always a drawng up on the part of those who enjoy and 

 appreciate a high education, that society is indebted to, for any great educational attain- 

 ments. 



Seeing, then, that we set up a high standard of education as preparation for a business 

 for which public opinion demands but a meager knowledge ; that we demand daily manual 

 labor ; that the influence of the larger part of teachers is to turn the attention of pupils to 

 other schools ; taking account also of the general expectation of educational men and the 

 limited field the college occupies, the unexampled facilities Michigan affords for what is 

 called a complete education, and the few that other colleges catalogue in their agricultural 

 departments, the college is even now succetsful in respect to numbers. 



GRADUAL INCREASE. 



The number of students is increasing gradually. Taking three years at a time since tho 

 reorganization of the college, and the numbers ran as follows: 1860-2,185; 1863-5, 200; 

 1866-8, 287 ; 1869-71, 349 ; 1872-4, 395. And the present year opens with a much larger 

 freshman class than usual, containing half as many as are in the freshman class of the uni- 

 versity department of literature, science, and art. 



DOES THE COLLEGE GRADUATE FARMERS? 



Colleges are not accustomed to graduate farmers. They take a young man in the suscepti- 

 ble period of his boyhood, keep him from manual labor, give him for association many who 

 regard such work as a degradation, set before him only such aims as the professions, or lit- 

 erature, or public life propose, and what wonder that he is educated away from the farm ! 



In March, 1872, the United States bureau of education issued a circular of information 

 regarding college graduates. Of the 622 graduates of Harvard in 24 years none are put 

 down as agriculturists. Of the 570 graduates of "Wesley University for 28 years, whose oc- 

 cupation is known, one devotes himself to agriculture. Of the 1,772 graduates of Yale in 

 20 years, whose occupation is known, 61 are agriculturists. Of the 1,254 Darmouth gradu- 

 ates, whose occupation is known, not one is a farmer. Of all together there is less than 1} 

 per cent. 



You might think it would not be so in the West, yet the same state of things exists here 

 also. The Indiana State University catalogue for 1869-70, gives the occupation of 107 

 graduates, being the graduates from 1861 to 1869 inclusive, except 13 whose occupation was 

 unknown. The catalogue says the students are mostly from the middle and even humbler 

 walks of life, many of them having by their own efforts procured the means for their educa- 

 tion. Now of these 107 graduates, whose business is known, three are farmers. Ripon Col- 

 lege in Wisconsin publishes a list of its graduates from 1867 to 1874 inclusive, in its 

 catalogue for 1874-5. Not one of the graduates for these eight years is a farmer. 



According to the triennial catalogue of Oherlin College for 1870, 16 graduates out of 484 

 of the male graduates between 1837 and 1869 had become farmers. According to the same 

 catalogue, out of 222 male graduates for 12 years, from 1858 to 1869, only four were farmers 

 and horticulturists. 



Colleges usually do not publish the occupations of their graduates. But the classes them- 

 selves often publish a paragraph of statistics, and one has only to read these as they appear 

 annually to see how very small a proportion turn their attention to agriculture. When a 

 graduate leaves the agricultural college he can become a farmer only if he owns or rents a 

 farm, or hires out upon one. Scarcely any occupation requires so much capital as farming. 

 Most of the graduates are poor. Even if the desire for a farmer's life is strong, he will very 

 likely teach, or practice surveying, or do something which will earn him means to purchase 

 land faster than hiring out on a farm can do. 



Graduation fixes nothuig. An honorable member of the House informs me that of the 24 

 who graduated with him in law, only four are practicing lawyers. Several other college 

 men have told me they thought not over one-half the graduates of the professional 

 schools practiced the professions, although to do so requires no large outlay as a farmer's 

 business does. And yet we have all paid willing taxes to provide them an education they 

 do not use in the prescribed line. So the graduates of the agricultural college will go into 

 the business that seems to them best. 



But it has been the design of those who manage the Agricultural College to create a bias 

 towards, and not away from the farm ; to make the wh,ole atmosphere of the place one of 

 respect for all kinds of work, and of a feeling of fellowship with farmers. To this end 



