16 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 



Again, a deadening influence would fall on faculty and students if we had no experiments. 

 None are qualified for the high office of instructors in science who are not in spirit investi- 

 gates also. Truth-seekers are a brotherhood, and although scattered throughout the 

 world, here and there one, feel the subtle influence called esprit de corps, and help each other. 

 Mr. Atwater, an acute observer of the experiment stations of Germany, seems to put the 

 enthusiasm the stations awaken, as not the least of their good influences. Students catch 

 the spirit of their masters and carry it through life. 



Again, the world is in need of accurate observers, of those who in common operations of 

 life distinguish between what they know and what they think they know. The simplest 

 statement an uneducated man can make of what has passed under his observation is apt to 

 be crowded full of his theories, his interences. It is one of the last attainments of a disci- 

 plined mind to be able to distinguish the fact from the inference and to state it clearly. 

 Lawyers know this. Men like Liebig know it. 



Now, it is hoped that the Agricultural College will serve this very purpose, of sending 

 back to their farms men who have this discipline, and who will use it for the good of the 

 State ; men who, from their scientific training, from their habits of observation, will distin- 

 guish better than they otherwise could do, just what it is that they endeavor to tell. They will 

 take moisture into account when they weigh, will describe the feed from which manure is 

 made when they tell the effects of manuring, and in a hundred ways, even though not pro- 

 fessing to experiment, will be genuine experimenters. I look eventually for great good to 

 come from their efforts. 



I have spoken chiefly of farm experiments. But our Horticultural department has been 

 experimenting, our Chemical department has been busy with original investigations, and 

 our Entomological department at the service of the farmers of the State. The work these 

 departments have done has not been small nor unimportant. If many of the papers in 

 which the results of their working appear are to be found in the horticultural reports, th 

 reports of the State Board of Health and in scientific journals, they serve nevertheless for the 

 advancement of science and education in the State. 



HESULTS. 



Let us look at the results of this experiment in a new system of education. And, first, 

 the college han it good number of students. Many and few are comparative terms. You have 

 to take account of circumstances when you use them. Cornell University has (1873 4) 461 

 students, and this college but 121. Their numbers are large and ours small. But. Cornell 

 University has nine distinct four-year courses, and we but one. In their agricultural course 

 they have seven students, and we 121. Their numbers in this course are small and ours are 

 large. 



Let us consider this a little further. The young men are few who will take a fuller course 

 of study than they think their business imperatively demands. And so doctors, lawyers, 

 and clergymen slur over their preparatory, to enter at once on their professional education. 

 The higher education is represented by Dr. Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian Institute as in 

 " unstable equilibrium." It requires always the self-denying work of the few who appre- 

 ciate it, to sustain it in community. All the students in alfthe regular classes in all the 

 colleges of Michigan, the University included, did not in 1873 exceed 741. Our University, 

 with its wide and well-earned fame, and free invitation to the world, catalogues in 1874-5, 

 exclusive of law and medical students, 476 in its many courses. 



Technological schools especially have but few students. Columbia College School of Mines, 

 with a national reputation, and the services of 16 officers, besides the partial services of 

 four others, has but 136 students (1872-3). Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard has 11 

 teachers and 35 students. The rich Stevens School of Technology had in its third year 

 eight professors and 21 students. Yale Scientific School has 274 students, with a professor 

 for each eight ; the Massachusetts School of Technology has 375 students, and a professor 

 for every 11 students. They have many courses of study. 



Thorough technological instruction is costly, and not yet appreciated. 



AGRICULTURAL STUDENTS FEW. 



There are few students in agriculture the world oner. " We have noticed the fact," say* 

 Louis Bollman, on Industrial Colleges, p. 21, " of the small number of students at the 

 European agricultural schools." Discerning persons saw how it would be. Wilson Flagg 

 in 1857, says : " It is more important to increase the desire for any branch of knowledge 

 than the opportunities for gaining it." Paul Chadbourne, President of Williams College, 

 was for years a member of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, then President of the 

 Massachusetts Agricultural College. Obliged from ill health to resign that place, he was 

 made President of Wisconsin University, of which the Agricultural College is a part. 

 Speaking from his wide experience, he says : " There is at present (1869) no such demand 

 for thorough agricultural education as is generally supposed to exist." "Very few young 



