.COLLEGES FOR THE EDUCATION OF THE INDUSTRIAL CLASSES, 



**. PAKTI. 



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""In 1862 two acts were passed by Congress, which, if wisely carried into 

 practical effect, are destined to exert a lasting influence on the agriculture of 

 the United States. These acts are, that establishing the Department of Agri- 

 culture, and that donating public lands to the several States and Territories 

 which may provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic 

 arts. It was fitting that these acts should have passed at the same session, for 

 in much they are intimately associated in action. In the discharge of their 

 respective duties each can aid the other. Whilst the Department can procure 

 seeds ana plants from every country, it yet needs careful and intelligent experi- 

 ments to determine the climate, soil, and cultivation best adapted to their growth. 

 On the forms of the colleges these experiments can be made; and when the 

 utility of a plant has thus been determined, seeds, cuttings, and plants can be 

 raised by them ; they can report to the Department the best modes of their 

 culture, and, through it, all can be distributed to every portion of the country. 

 Such a connexion Congress evidently had in view, when it required, in the 

 fifth section of the act making donations to these colleges, that an annual report 

 should be made regarding the progress of each college, recording any improve- 

 ments and experiments made, with their cost and results, and such other matters, 

 including State industrial and economical statistics, as may be supposed useful. 



This mutual dependence between the Department of Agriculture and these 

 colleges has created an earnest solicitude, on the part of those connected with 

 the former, for the successful establishment of the latter. Occupying a place in 

 the Department that has led me to feel, most sensibly, the necessity of the aid 

 of these colleges, and knowing that, for want of experience in their establish- 

 ment, the industrial classes need information respecting them, I have availed 

 myself of facilities here to collect some information that may add to whatever 

 knowledge of the nature of industrial colleges the public may have. 



This information is placed under three general heads. First, the nature of 

 the instruction that should be given in them ; second, the several kinds of in- 

 dustrial colleges, and their courses of instruction ; and third, the plan of the 

 college building, the museum, and other aids essential to proper instruction in 

 the sciences. Of these in the order stated : 



1. The nature of the instruction. A general idea exists that the industrial 

 pursuits need less of intellectual development and knowledge than the profes- 

 sions. In all pursuits there is much that is mere routine, and whether it be the 

 labor of holding the plough or the pen, or directing either, there is little differ- 

 ence as to mind between them. The lawyer's form-book and the physician's 

 mortar and pestle give as much manual labor to them as the guidance of the 

 plough does to the farmer. In either case the labor, from constant repetition, 

 becomes mere art, however much of thought was at first necessary to use them 

 properly. But lying behind them are years of study of principles. If in the 

 profession of the law human laws have to be learned, their history and pur- 

 poses and action understood; in that of medicine, the physical organization and 

 mental laws of man studied, not less should the farmer have a knowledge of 

 the laws of vegetable and animal growth. As much as the laws of nature are 

 greater than those of human society, so much is the agriculturist's occupation 



