296 HENRY HILL GOODELL 



haps I can express myself in no way more clearly than by 

 outlining to you the course at the Massachusetts Agricul- 

 tural College. That has stood ever since its foundation, 

 in 1867, for agriculture alone, instruction in the mechanic 

 arts being supplied by the Institute of Technology, which 

 has shared with it the proceeds of the grant of 1862 and 

 the later one of 1890. 



While it has been the purpose of the faculty to give the 

 best possible instruction upom every subject taught, there 

 has been no effort to expand the course beyond the proper 

 limits of a simple professional school, or to compete in any 

 manner with other existing institutions. On the other hand, 

 the College has from the outset been intended to be some- 

 thing very different from a mere manual-labor or farm 

 school for training apprentices in the various operations of 

 husbandry. Since the first few years manual labor has been 

 entirely discarded, except in so far as it has an educational 

 value — not how to plough and hoe, but when and where 

 to do it to the best advantage. The hours of student-life 

 can be much more profitably employed than in mere manual 

 labor, opportunities for which are everywhere presented, 

 while the facilities for education are offered only at the 

 college and for a limited period. More mind and less 

 muscle is the watchword of to-day. In preparing the soil, 

 in planting, in cultivating, in haying, in harvesting, in 

 threshing, in the management of the dairy, in fact almost 

 everywhere, intelligence is the principal thing, and mere 

 brute force comparatively worthless. The old prejudice 

 against thoughtful, studious, and progressive men as book- 

 farmers and fancy farmers has at length been overcome by 

 the mass of printed matter which is flooding with light 



