140 LETTER-FILES OF S. W. JOHNSON 



best man to place at the head of the new Pennsylvania 

 Agricultural College, and was an intermediary in 

 correspondence on this subject. Mr. Pugh wrote from 

 Gottingen in September and November, 1855: 



I saw a student sometime ago as I was traveling in the 

 Hartz mountains, who said he had a friend who spent some 

 time at the Hohenheim School. He said that Prof. Wolff had 

 no reputation at all there. He had not more than 1/2 dozen 

 "zuhearers" and these all thought it was " schrecklich lang- 

 weilig;" he came into the lecture room with an armful of 

 books, and read a little from one and then another, etc. He, 

 this student, said that Prof. Wolff did not know anything 

 about practical farming ! ! ! that he only had some impractical 

 theoretical views of his own that every farmer knew were of no 

 practical value etc, etc. Don't think that since hearing the 

 above I have burned my ' ' Naturgesetzlicher Grundlagen des 

 Ackerbaus," I merely wanted to remind you that when such 

 men as Dr. Wolff are thus unsuccessful, when stupidity and 

 ignorance obstruct their progress, younger hands need not lose 

 confidence in themselves if they don't meet with universal 

 success in the same field. . . . The student whom I met in 

 the Hartz was one who had been a ' ' Nachmittage Practicant ' ' 

 in Erdmann's Lab. the first winter I was in Leipsic and not 

 a very industrious one. . . . He was managing a farm in the 

 neighborhood had not studied chemistry any since that 

 winter and yet thought he knew enough for a practical agri- 

 culturist, without any advice from such men as Prof. Wolff, 

 etc., etc. . . . With regard to the Penn. Ag. School, I would 

 be willing to accept the position of Principal in the School. 

 Indeed I would take it gladly at the end of 2 years, it would 

 enable me to make different arrangements before leaving 

 Europe than I otherwise could make. . . . You can read my 

 letter to Dr. Elwyn. I don't doubt but that if one got into 

 a place where the arrangements were not the best in the world 

 for the promotion of ag. science he might bend matters grad- 



