324 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



course is given to strictly agricultural studies than is given 

 in law or medical or scientific schools to their several 

 specialties. The Agricultural College has to provide algebra, 

 book-keeping, declamation and elocution, French and Ger- 

 man, English literature, mental science, freehand drawing, 

 etc., while carrying the student well forward in chemical 

 physics, organic and practical chemistry, botany, stock and 

 dairy farming, veterinary science, microscopy, geology and 

 other studies. In the curriculum we miss only one science 

 that it occurs to us should find place ; viz., meteorology. 



Did all the young men come with an education more ad- 

 vanced than is afforded at our common schools, the scheme of 

 instruction might be quite different from what it is, and meet 

 our approval. It seems to us, however, absolutely needful 

 that the graduate have so general and extended a culture, 

 obtained somewhere, as shall enable him to maintain a posi- 

 tion of equality, at least, with the graduate of the classical 

 institution. The education can well be different ; but the 

 agricultural graduate, we hold, should have as much store of 

 information, as much of mind discipline, and as much of con- 

 fidence in the fitness and worth of the education he has had 

 offered him. If we thought the College failed in having too 

 low aspirations, or if we thought it was not pursuing the 

 path indicated with considerable success, we should say so 

 with entire frankness. 



From the relation the Board sustains to the College, there 

 is a tendency to confine our observations more particularly to 

 agricultural features, and, if we dwell not upon others, it is 

 not because we hold them less important. The length of our 

 report makes us regret that the labors of several professors 

 receive no acknowledgment. They know, at least, that the 

 omission does not make them an unimportant part of the 

 faculty. 



Hosts of visitors stroll over the farm during the year. It 

 is more open to observation than any feature of the College, 

 and consequently is more remarked upon. It is never in a 

 perfectly satisfactory condition to every one ; nor should this 

 be expected. Veiy probably, no two committees of the 

 Board would report favorably or unfavorably upon the same 

 details of management. But we believe that most intelligent 



