1890.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 285 



the United States grant is complied with, and the Agricult- 

 ural College is freed from the labor and expense of building 

 up and maintaining a mechanical department. There are 

 other funds for specific purposes, some of which have been 

 briefly alluded to, and all of which may be seen in the 

 trustees' report of 1889. 



Instruction at the College. 



The work of instruction which is undertaken by the college 

 is in a satisfactory condition. The teachers are able and 

 zealous, the classes are well arranged, and the students seem 

 well-developed, alert, and attentive to their tasks. The 

 appliances for laboratory instruction in the courses which 

 are given are tolerably well adapted to the needs of teachers 

 and pupils. 



The principal defects in the equipment of the college are 

 found in the lack of instruction in veterinary surgery and 

 medicine, and in geology ; and also in the insufficient col- 

 lections designed to illustrate the now important facts of 

 these departments. The former of these defects is serious ; 

 for a competent knowledge of the simplest parts of veterinary 

 science is of very great importance to the farmer. It is 

 obviously impossible to give an extended course in this 

 science in an agricultural college, for the reason that it 

 would require at least a year of the student's time ; but it 

 seems desirable that instruction of a partial kind in the 

 more important parts of the veterinary art should be given, 

 — if not as a regular course, at least as an optional study. 

 Your committee are informed that the college needs 

 apparatus and equipment for instruction in this department ; 

 such, for example, as a plastic model of the horse, which 

 can be taken to pieces before the class, and used in the 

 recitation room in the same manner as a manikin. These 

 models are somewhat expensive, but, if needed, should be 

 provided. 



The defects in geological instruction and appliances in the 

 way of collections, though serious, are perhaps of less 

 immediate importance ; yet this science much concerns the 

 farmer, who should understand the condition of the soils 

 with which he has to deal, and the natural manures on which 



