Agricultural Education 5 



for colleges.^ This plan, providing for the chemistry of agri- 

 culture, was carried out more or less fully at Philadelphia 

 Academy (University of Pennsylvania). We find Husbandry 

 and Commerce mentioned in the original prospectus of King's 

 College (Columbia University), dated May 31, 1754, and Agri- 

 culture and Alerchandize in the laws and orders adopted by the 

 governors, June 3, 1755.^ The chair of botany and agriculture 

 in 1792 was held by Samuel Latham iMitchell, M. D. In 1794, 

 in describing a summer course in botany, he says " An attempt 

 is made by the professor, who is a practical farmer, to elucidate 

 and explain the economy of plants, their affinity to animals, and 

 the organization, excitability, stimuli, life diseases, and death 

 of both classes of beings. The physiology of plants, 

 is therefore particularly enlarged upon, as connected with gar- 

 dening and farming."* 



One of the best instances of the actual uses of agriculture 

 and other industrial work in an educational way for pupils of 

 elem.entary and secondary school age is furnished by the schools 

 established at New Harmony, Ind., in 1825, by William Maclure,"^ 

 in connection with his socialistic experiment known as the New 

 Harmony Movement. Maclure placed the schools in charge of 

 Joseph Neef, whom he had brought to Philadelphia in 1806 

 to introduce Pestalozzi's method of teaching. He provided ample 

 dormitories, books, museums, shops, experimental plats, and 

 other facilities. The experiment was short-lived, suffering from 

 the spirit of religious intolerance on all sides, while the location 

 so far from the older centers of intellectual life was largely 

 responsible for the slight impression the schools made on edu- 

 cational practice. 



A pioneer movement in agricultural education and one that 

 lasted much longer than many others, though not much noticed 



' William Smith, Discourses on Public Affairs, second edition, Lon- 

 don, 1762. 



' Van Amringe in Universities and their Sons, edited by Joshua L. 

 Chamberlain, pp. 583 and 598. 



■• Mitchell, The Present State of Learning in the College of New York. 

 New York, 1794. 



' Will S. Monroe, Pestalozzian Movement in the United States. 



