11 



cij>lcs sought for are more readily and certainly grasped by trials 

 in a small way, where the conditions are under control. Hartford 

 Courant, Jan. loth, 1874. 



FROM ' ACRICULTl'RAL SCHOOLS IN EUROPE," IN A REPORT OF 

 THE SECRETARY OF MASS. BOARD OF AGRICl LTl'HE. 



I. 



" It would be unfair to assert that the advocates of University 

 teaching, in Germany, undervalue practice. Their position is that 

 the union of the highest education in the sciences and the practice 

 is incompatible at the same time and at the same school, and they 

 advise the pupil to begin at the fountain head, and become well 

 grounded in the scientific principles, and then to go on a farm un- 

 der a competent, practical man, and learn the details of farm 

 management. * l * Liebig has taken the ground very strenuously 

 in favor of a connection with the universities, and a great majority 

 of the agriculturists adopt that view ; or take a middle ground, that 

 the location should be in the immediate vicinity of some established 

 university, partly as a means of bringing the students under uni- 

 versity laws, and partly to give the professors a higher position in 

 the estimation of their pupils, and to avail themselves of the ad- 

 vantages of the collections, libraries, etc., which a university can 

 offer, as well as the talent of university professors." 



II. 



" Nor do I think that any impartial observer can fail to see that, 

 had the Agricultural College of Circencester been connected with 

 one of the universities, Cambridge or Oxford, it would be more 

 likely to accomplish the ends which it now proposes to itself, would 

 possess greater vitality, and receive a far more liberal patronage 

 from the class of people it now aims to educate, than it does, or is 

 likely to, in any time to come. It would have been able to secure 

 and retain the highest scientific talents ; while the farm which is 

 now used simply as a model for illustration, on which the students 

 do not work. 'would have been equally valuable and imjwrtant on 

 the downs of Oxfordshire, or on the fens of Cambridge." 



