HOME ECONOMICS AND EDUCATION 683 



from the Department, and they are anxious to get it and make good 

 use of it; but some do not attend the meetings with the same readi- 

 ness that they did before. You all know that the labor problem is a 

 very serious one, and the farmer and his wife have not now the same 

 freedom in getting to meetings that they had some years ago. (Re- 

 port of the F. I. 1910, Province of Toronto.) 



Agricultural Colleges. In 1819 Simeon De Witt, surveyor- 

 general of New York, published a pamphlet at Albany urging the 

 foundation under State authority of the Agricultural College of the 

 State of New York, not so much to give instruction to farmers as 

 to make farmers from the other classes of society, which are stocked 

 with such a superfluity of members that hordes of them must other- 

 wise remain useless or worse than useless to the community. Two 

 years later (1821) Robert Hallowell Gardiner, of Maine, obtained 

 an annual grant of $1,000 from the State legislature to aid in main- 

 taining an institution which was to give mechanics and farmers 

 such a scientific education as would enable them to become skilled 

 in their professions. This institution was incorporated as the 

 Gardiner Lyceum ; a stone building was erected for its use, and stu- 

 dents were first received January 1, 1823. 



In 1825 a plan for an agricultural college was submitted to 

 the legislature of Massachusetts and discussed there and in the New 

 England Farmer and other papers for some time. It was to be 

 much like other colleges of the time, with the addition of courses 

 in agriculture and mechanic arts, provided with a farm and shops. 

 No immediate results followed this agitation. An agricultural 

 school established at Derby, Conn., in 1826, proved immediately 

 successful, and was obliged to increase its accommodations for 

 students. 



Agitation on behalf of agricultural education grew more active, 

 and between 1845 and 1850 a number of agricultural schools were 

 established by private enterprise in New York and Connecticut, 

 some of which met with considerable success for quite a period. In 

 1846 John P. Norton was appointed professor of agricultural chemis- 

 try and vegetable and animal physiology at Yale College, and the 

 demand for teachers of agricultural chemistry had grown to be suf- 

 ficient by 1848 to warrant the establishment of a course for their 

 preparation at the same institution. In 1853 the New York legis- 

 lature passed acts establishing a State agricultural college and an 

 industrial school, to be known as The Peoples' College. These in- 

 stitutions, however, did not become firmly established. Agricul- 

 tural colleges which have grown to be permanent and strong insti- 

 tutions were opened for students in Michigan in 1857 and in Penn- 

 sylvania and Maryland in 1859. 



State agricultural colleges were incorporated in Iowa and Min- 

 nesota in 1858, and professorships of agriculture were established 

 about this time in several literary colleges. 



On December 14, 1857, Mr. Morrill of Vermont introduced 

 into the House of Representatives a bill donating public lands to 

 the several States and Territories which may provide colleges for 



