12 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 



Such a system as this differs essentially from that of a simple manual labor school which 

 (as is often stated) have always been failures. 



Do students shirk their work? But very little. Never more than students are accus- 

 tomed to shirk lessons here or elsewhere. Most of them are accustomed to work on enter- 

 ing ; most of them need the 7 or 7-J cents an hour allowed for faithful labor. The variety of 

 kinds of work, the relation of it to their studies, the presence and interest of the!r instruc- 

 tors, serve to interest them in what they do. The best scholars are usually the best 

 workers. 



DOES THE LABOR OF STUDENTS PAT ? 



Pay how? or what? This is a college, and everything pays that is not too costly as a 

 means of illustration, or of instruction, or of securing skill in the matters it is designed to 

 teach. A college buys large museums to aid the student in his study of geology , or zo5logy, 

 or mineralogy, and the expenditure pays by furnishing means of study. So with the 

 chemical laboratory, the library, etc. It "is the same with the botanic gardens, the varieties 

 of stock, fruits, nurseries, vegetable gardens, farm crops, implements, meadows, pastures, 

 and all the furniture of a college like this. They "pay" by being means of illustration, 

 complementing the lessons of the text books and lectures. They pay by being a place on 

 which he practices what he is afterwards to do. 



Since a chemist's knowledge is more accurate after he has had practice in the chemical 

 laboratory, therefore, here students work a half year in the chemical laboratory, three 

 hours a day, after they have had their half years' course of chemical lectures The sur- 

 veyor's knowledge is more to be relied on, if he has actually used the compass and level, 

 surveyed lands, calculated contents, and made plats. Students receive such practice here. 

 In the same way they have practice in grafting, transplanting, the use of farm and garden 

 implements, and in the manual operations of farm and garden. The college thus imparts 

 the practical knowledge it was established to teach. If the labor teaches, gives familiarity 

 with mechanical, botanical, horticultural and agricultural principles, and bestows practical 

 skill, so far as such a limited exercise as three hours work a day in varied labor can go, in 

 so far it does pay like any other expenditure for sustaining an educational institution, 



IS THE LABOR SYSTEM EXPENSIVE? 



The labor system Is, of course, not without its expense to the institution. Tools and 

 teams are required in greater numbers than a farm of equal size requires, especially as al- 

 most all the students work at one time. Three hours labor of a boy varied to give him in- 

 struction is not worth so much as a third of nine hours of continuous work applied where it 

 would be most profitable. It is limited also to a set time ; and ends, unless great loss would 

 accrue, irrespective of the condition of the work. Besides, labor has to be planned for a 

 large force for three hours, succeeded and being succeeded by a very small one. To make 

 the labor educational requires also the constant superintendence of skilled professors and 

 foremen, who must be paid. 



ALL EDUCATION COSTLY. 



But all education is costly. No student in a public institution of learning pays his ex- 

 penses. Buildings, libraries, museums, laboratories, instruction, are all the free gift of com- 

 munities or individuals to the student. Technical instruction is costly. And if the expense 

 of our labor system be reckoned up, and taken as educational, it will not be found to be 

 more expensive by the hour than chemical, mining, mechanical instruction usually is. 



WHY PAY WAGES? 



The college is sometimes compared with a medical school or a law school, and it is asked 

 why we should pay for what the students need educationally. The cases are not similar. 

 In a medical school a student hardly does more than try his hand at dissection ; he may 

 plead a case or two in a moot court. But with us labor is a daily thing; it is three hours at a 

 time, and it is valuable to the institution. If you count in the expenses of carrying on the 

 labor system, the wages of the foreman, the interest in additional tools and the like, stu- 

 dents' labor are no profit. So if you count the antecedent expenses without which dissec- 

 tions and moot courts could not be, they may be found to be expensive. But if these are 

 counted among the necessary expenses of the college as an educational institution, as I be- 

 lieve they should be, then the labor of stadents is worth to the college all we pay for it. It 

 is continuous productive labor. I think a student in a laboratory who earned something 

 every day from year to year by his analyses would desire a share of the profits. The plan 

 of paying wages is quite general, but not universal, with the agricultural colleges. 



When the institution was first started, 16 cents an hour was paid as the highest wages. 

 President Williams, in his first report to the board, April 1, 1858, says of the college : " A 



