No. 4.] AGKICULTUKAL EDUCATION. 93 



THE ADVISABILITY OF AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION 

 IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. 



[Steuograplier's Notes.] 



BY PROF. L. H. BAILEY, ITHACA, N. Y, 



I feel complimented to have the most important subject 

 on the Avhole programme which has come before you. You 

 are to listen to papers on farming, on the improvement of 

 the cow, and other agricultural (Questions ; but I take it that 

 the most important thing, after all, is the boys and girls. 

 Unless Ave have young men and young women who are in- 

 terested in agricultural matters, and are more efficient than 

 the parents are, we can scarcely expect to obtain an agri- 

 cultural competence. 



Some of you may have read a few days ago a statement 

 in the press despatches to the eflect that the great universi- 

 ties are to be in the great cities. New Y^ork City, according 

 to these statements, in a generation or two will have a pop- 

 ulation of 10,000,000 inhabitants. The cities are to have 

 great problems ; the activities of the nation are to centre 

 therein. The despatches state that students who desire to 

 come into first-hand contact with the problems of life will 

 take up what they call "the })roblems of the dark, gray 

 city." The account also speaks of those self-sacrificing 

 institutions located at New Haven and Ithaca and Princeton 

 as being tremendously handicapped in their academic and 

 university work because they have no great collections to 

 which they can send their students, unless they build those 

 collections with their own forces ; whereas, in New Y^ork, 

 Boston and Philadelphia there are great collections, there 

 are great libraries and museums, and there are tremendous 

 social and economic problems. 



