AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 17 



men are willing to spend the time and money needed to learn what is now known as practi- 

 cal agriculture," and " a great deal is to be done in the community before our schools of 

 agriculture can have the success which they even now deserve." Governor Chamberlain, 

 of Maine, in bis message to the legislature, says : " A farmer's college is a good and worthy 

 idea, but that alone will not lire and move. There are not enough boys who mean to go 

 back to the farm after they have got through college." 



The colleges bear out the prediction : especially mere departments of universities have few 

 agricultural students. Take Cornell University, and its students are catalogued are follows 

 (Register 1873-4, page 104): In science, 110; literature, 30 ; arts, 25 ; agriculture,?; ar- 

 chitecture, 21 ; chemistry, 7 ; engineering, 84 ; mechanic arts, 32 ; natural history, 6 ; op- 

 tional studies, 120; resident graduates, 10; total, 461. Seven agricultural students in 461. 



The University of Vermont and State Agricultural College trustees, in their report for 

 1873-4, page 12, use this language : " That young men do not come to us seeking such an 

 education as a preparation for a life upon a farm does not surprise us. The idea that a far- 

 mer needs a thorough education, that he can make it serviceable to him as a farmer, that be 

 is entitled to it, and to the social respect and public influence which it confers, it will take a 

 long time to make familiar and operative in the farming community." 



The President of the University of Minnesota, of which the State Agricultural College is a 

 part (page 29 of report, 1873), reports 278 students, and says, " So far as I am aware, not a 

 single man has come here desiring to learn the science of farming in order to practice it" 

 The president now writes me that they have two students, and shall do much to develop the 

 agricultural department soon. Bussey Institution, the Agricultural College of Harvard 

 University, witn an able corps of professors, has. I am told, but one regular student, a 

 graduate of the Michigan Agricultural College. Yale Agricultural College has almost no 

 students in agriculture. The professors of these institutions are not idle, but in a certain 

 sense have the world for their school. 



President White, of Cornell University, writing of agricultural schools and departments, 

 says of their students : " The number is at present very small, but I presume that no 

 thoughtful man expected that so early a period after their establishment the number would 

 be very large ; nor indeed do I expect that for some years to come the number will greatly 

 increase." In a new country like ours those professions which present the more brilliant 

 returns will be sought for first. 



The catalogue of the University of "Wisconsin gives a separate place in its courses to agri- 

 culture; but although it catalogues students in classics, science, civil engineering, mining, 

 ami metallurgy, no one of its 411 students is put down as in the agricultural course. It ia 

 difficult to analyze the instruction in such colleges as Wisconsin, Illinois Industrial Univer- 

 sity, Kansas Agricultural College, Missouri University, and Iowa Agricultural College, and 

 determine how much is agricultural. They may be doing good work, and doubtless will, 

 in their scientific and agricultural departments. Their catalogues do not distinguish as a 

 general thing. In Illinois a student may be pursuing two or more courses at once, and of 

 its 406 students 39 would seem to have chosen agriculture as one, or by itself. 



About one month ago (Jan. 13, 1875), the congressional committee on education and 

 labor, after about a year's investigation into the affairs of the institutions established or as- 

 sisted by the agricultural college land grant, reported to the house of representatives as 

 follows : " The number of students in attendance upon these schools is already between 

 3,000 and 4,000 ; and they have furnished more than 1,600 graduates to the active occupa- 

 tions of life. * * * There is evidence of an honest purpose to make the studies pursued 

 such in variety, in extent, and in value, as shall meet the requirements of the laws to which 

 they are indebted for their endowment." (p. 10.) 



It appears then, that in every school, classical, technological, agricultural, the students 

 are few compared with the great army of young men who are willing to do without a high 

 education. One unacquainted with the principles of popular education would be tempted 

 to inquire, when be sees the immense cost of colleges, universities, and technical schools. 

 Whence all this waste* But I believe I address men who harbor no such misgivings. It 

 has not been the wont of Michigan to put a low estimate on education, even in its highest 

 and least frequented walks. I appeal for proofs to its generous support of its university, 

 its normal school, and agricultural college. Instead of heeding that arithmetic which 

 divides a total expenditure amongst a few students or graduates to show how expensive the 

 education is, the State nurtured its university until, in spite of bitter opposition continued 

 through many years, it is able to command respect. The agricultural college has had no 

 fiercer opposition at any time than used to assail the university : its growth has not been 

 less rapid. Being a professional school, it cannot, of course, receive the wide and high de- 

 velopment of the university ; and I believe the people of the State will continue to be gen- 

 erous to it in this, the period of its formation ; will pardon, if need be, mistakes made in 

 the working of a school so totally unlike the old models ; give to the board that controls it 



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