318 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



for which he provides food or clothing. A weak agriculture 

 saps somewhat of strength from all desirable interests. The 

 upholders of the College believe that the agricultural interest 

 in the State is weaker to-day than, in the nature of things, it 

 need be. 



The changes consequent upon the activities of a period to 

 which the telegraph, steam and machinery are common and 

 familiar in the experience of the people, have altered the rela- 

 tions formerly preserved between classes of citizens as divided 

 by occupation. Whether the standard for comparison is 

 intellectual, physical or financial, the several classes will not 

 be found to have moved forward equally. In these' days 

 there is more division of labor and a longer list of industries. 

 Special knowledge is in demand, and education, to a good 

 degree, is common with persons of very different occupations, 

 while respectability and social weight do not so much exist 

 to raise the dignity of some orders of people to the dispar- 

 agement of others. Arts, in many instances, are become 

 sciences. Between the professional classes, so called, and the 

 farmer there are large and increasing numbers, well educated 

 and influential. While the farmer looks out upon a multitude 

 of such, he, in his own field, is oppressed by problems more 

 serious, and requiring a more trained mind to solve, than were 

 present to the generation which cut off the forest and planted 

 in virgin soil. 



The supporters of the Agricultural College hold that requi- 

 sites to greater success in agricultural production, that requi- 

 sites to success in preserving the influence of farmers in 

 governmental and social affairs that is due to their numbers 

 and the importance of their labor, will be supplied in large 

 part by extending to them an education beyond what is com- 

 monly afforded at the district school, and one altogether 

 appropriate to their occupation. 



There is alwaj^s excuse for the founding of an institution 

 when it has distinct and useful ends in view, not to be secured 

 from existing institutions. While older ones are employed in 

 such work as is useful and acceptable, a new school, having 

 widely different aims and drawing its material from an unhar- 

 vested field, must be he'd as rather enlarging the domain of 

 culture, than as maintaining a relation of rivalry toward dis- 



