25 



ture or Engineering were taught. In other words, 

 let Political Economy be eliminated from the course, 

 and Economics of Agriculture and of Transportation 

 be put in its place. If literature is desirable, let us 

 have, not miscellaneous belles-lettres, however well 

 written or elevating, but rural essays and pastoral 

 poems for the Agricultural Department. Such a 

 specialization of the course is to be realized, if strict 

 conformation to the name of the institution out- 

 weighs other and no less important, nay perhaps 

 more important, considerations. A homely English 

 proverb says, " Call one a thief and he will steal." 

 Might we not say, " Call a school agricultural and it 

 will turn out plowmen " ? One is almost tempted to 

 insist with Walter Shandy that there is much, in 

 fact almost all, in names. 



We have been tracing the gradual process, operat- 

 ing for over a decade and quarter, by which the 

 Sapporo Agricultural College developed into a hete- 

 rogeneous, specially technical institution, from a 

 homogeneous condition which we have boldly sug- 

 gested might be called cameralistic. How far the 

 specialization has progressed, is evident from the 

 table of curricula we have appended elsewhere. 



From the curriculum of the Collge proper, that of 

 the Preparatory Department may be judged with 

 more or less precision. This Department aims at 

 two objects one of preparing young men for the col- 

 legiate course, and the other of imparting such 

 general knowledge as is given in the Ordinary 

 Middle Schools of the Empire ; hence its curriculum 

 is arranged only a little lower than that of the so- 

 called Higher Middle Schools. 



