AGRICULTURE 102 



societies was follow. -.1 by the foundation of 

 professorships and schools of agriculture. 

 Through the efforts of the Massachusetts Agri- 

 cultural Society a professorship of natural 

 history was established at Harvard College in 

 1804, and during the next half century numer- 

 ous schools of agriculture flourished for brief 

 periods. 



In the United States when agitation for 

 agricultural education came to an end at the 

 outbreak of the War of Secession, one state at 

 . Michigan, was more fortunate. During 

 the height of the agitation, in 1850, the state 

 adopted a constitution in which some far- 

 sighted person had procured the insertion of 

 a clause making it obligatory for the state to 

 maintain a school of agriculture either inde- 

 pendently or in connection with the state uni- 

 versity. In accordance with this provision the 

 state agricultural college was opened in 1857; 

 it is the oldest institution of its kind now in 

 existence in the United States. In 1859 Penn- 

 sylvania and Maryland established similar col- 

 leges, now still flourishing. 



Land-Grant Colleges. Instruction in agri- 

 culture, however, was first put on a firm scien- 

 tific footing in 1862, by the passage of the 

 M on-ill Act. It granted to each state 30,000 

 acres of public lands for each member it had 

 in Congress, the entire proceeds of the sale of 

 this land to be set aside as a perpetual fund 

 for the benefit of colleges of agriculture and 

 mechanic arts. It is estimated that the en- 

 dowment thus established has reached a total 

 of over $20,000,000. 



At first the "land-grant colleges," as they 

 were called, had a hard struggle. They re- 

 ceived recognition neither from the farmer nor 

 from other colleges and universities. Grad- 

 ually the value of the work done by them 

 became apparent, and a second Morrill Act 

 of 1890 and several later laws provided con- 

 siderable increases in the annual appropria- 

 tions. In 1916 each of the colleges received not 

 merely the income from the original land- 

 grant, but also the annual Federal grant of 

 $50,000 for instruction and $30,000 for agri- 

 cultural experiment stations (see below), in 

 addition to large appropriations from the 

 states. Porto Rico, Hawaii and each of the 

 states has established at least one agricultural 

 college, and seventeen of the Southern states 

 have two, one for white students and one for 

 negroes. 



If the special colleges for negroes are ex- 

 cluded, the state agricultural colleges may be 



AGRICULTURE 



divided into two groups first, the independent 

 institutions; second, those which are depart- 

 ments "or schools of state universities. Each 

 group included twenty-five institutions in 1916. 

 Unique among them all is the Massachusetts 

 Agricultural College, which is an independent 

 school offering instruction only in agricultural 

 subjects. Twenty-four independent colleges 

 offer courses in the mechanic arts, including 

 engineering, as well as in agriculture, and 

 twenty-five others are parts of state universi- 

 ties. In all of these colleges the regular course 

 requires four years and leads to a bachelor's 

 degree. Three-fourths of the colleges require 

 the equivalent of a four-years' high school 

 course for admission, but few of them agree in 

 the requirements for graduation. Taking the 

 colleges as a whole, the average course requires 

 about one-fourth to one-third of the time in 

 purely agricultural subjects, the remainder 

 being divided chiefly among English, modern 

 foreign languages, mathematics, social sciences 

 and natural sciences. Many of the graduates 

 become teachers in agriculture in secondary or 

 elementary schools. In addition to the instruc- 

 tion given by the state institutions, several 

 privately-endowed schools offer courses in agri- 

 culture, notably Syracuse and Harvard. 



Canadian Agricultural Colleges. As Canada 

 is one of the leading agricultural countries of 

 the world it is natural that agricultural educa- 

 tion should receive careful attention. Each 

 province has its agricultural college or supplies 

 some instruction in agriculture through the 

 provincial university. The oldest and probably 

 best known of these institutions is the Ontario 

 Agricultural College at Guelph. It has stu- 

 dents from every province of the Dominion, 

 from Argentina, Belgium, England, Ireland, 

 India, Japan, Mexico and other foreign coun- 

 tries. In Quebec, Macdonald College, affiliated 

 with McGill University, has a school of agri- 

 culture, and in Nova Scotia the agricultural 

 college at Truro provides a complete four- 

 years' course. The Manitoba Agricultural Col- 

 lege, in addition to its regular agricultural 

 course for young men, offers a course in home 

 economics for young women. The Saskatche- 

 wan Agricultural College at Saskatoon was 

 opened in 1912. In Prince Edward Island the 

 Prince of Wales College offers agricultural 

 courses, as does the University of Alberta at 

 Edmonton, and in New Brunswick there are 

 two agricultural institutes. Much of the in- 

 struction in these institutions is to prepare 

 men and women to become teachers. 



