6 Agricultural Instruction in the Public High Schools 



in the literature of agricultural education, was the Oneida Manual 

 Labor Institute, conducted by George Washington Gale from 

 1827 to 1834, and including instruction in carpentry and agri- 

 culture. This extended effort followed a few years' experience 

 with a number of boys who were taken on to a farm near Whites- 

 boro, Oneida County, N. Y., to which he had retired from the 

 ministry on account of ill health. He later established Knox 

 College, at Galesburg, 111. 



A Manual Labor Academy w^as conducted from 1830 to 1832 

 at Germantown, Pa., by George Junkin, who was later the first 

 president of Lafayette College. 



Sporadic attempts, more or less futile, were made to introduce 

 regular instruction in agriculture as a part of the school cur- 

 riculum early in the last century, as at Dummer Academy, New- 

 berry, Mass., 1824; Derby, Conn., 1824; Teachers' Seminary, 

 Andover, Mass., 1838; The Peoples' College, Montour Falls, 

 New York, 1853; Westfield (Mass.) Academy, 1856; and Powers 

 Institute. Bemardston, Mass., 1857. The opening of Bussey In- 

 stitute, founded by a bequest made in 1842, was delayed by 

 Harvard College until 1870. That commendable philanthropy, 

 the Farm School, Thompson's Island, Boston, now ninety-five 

 years old, began instructions in agriculture in 1833, and has 

 since continued it. Work of recognized scientific merit was 

 inaugurated at the Sheffield Scientific School, Yale, in 1848, by 

 the establishment of a chair of agricultural chemistry and 

 vegetable and animal physiology. 



Most of the present large list of agricultural and mechanical 

 colleges were founded as a result of the famous Morrill Act 

 of 1862. Of the few already in existence before this date, the 

 Michigan Agricultural College, opened to students in 1857. is 

 the oldest. The Morrill Act gave to each state 30.000 acres 

 of land for each member of Congress for the establishment and 

 maintenance of such schools. From this have resulted endow- 

 ment funds amounting to $12,000,000, with $8,000,000 worth 

 of land not yet sold. Later acts of Congress, the Hatch Act 



