No. 4.] AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 133 



all. In these simple yet comprehensive words do we not 

 find the fundamental ideas of the public school, the tech- 

 nological school, the school of mechanic arts and the agri- 

 cultural college, and all to be devoted, in loyalty of s})irit, 

 to the service of our beloved Commonwealth '? 



These fundamental ideas, with more or less prominence, 

 characterized the education of our Colonial and Revolution- 

 ary periods, but within the present century they have re- 

 ceived marked development. It has been said that while 

 education is not more seriously regarded now than formerly, 

 it is more wisely studied. What is education? What is its 

 ()l)iect? What are the l:)cst methods for securing its ol)jcct? 

 These questions and others of similar import are not new, 

 and are being constantly repeated as the far-reaching im- 

 portance of the suliject itself engages the earnest thought of 

 student and philosopher. Let us listen, for a moment, to 

 some of the answers that have been given to these questions. 

 Lord Bacon stated the ol^ject of education to be ' ' the culti- 

 vation of a just and legitimate ftimiliarity betwixt mind and 

 things." Froebel says that education " is the harmonious 

 development of the whole being." Pestalozzi dechires it to 

 be the generation of power. Emerson says that ' ' the great 

 object of education should be commensurate with the object 

 of life." Herbert Spencer says, " How to live is the great 

 thing that education has to teach," and still another says, 

 "Education is, then, the development of all the powers of 

 man to the culminating point of action — action in art, 

 which is ' power or skill in the use of knowledge ; the 

 practical application of the rules or principles of science.'" 



We see, then, that there is a broad distinction between 

 education and the simple acquisition of knowledge. Edu- 

 cation is a development, a growth, and the education of a 

 man implies the development of all his powers. Hence we 

 speak of physical education, the development of the body ; 

 of the education or development of one's mental faculties ; 

 of moral education or the development of one's moral 

 nature. The simple knowledge of fticts or of things has of 

 itself comparatively little value. Of what value is it to 

 know that the Declaration of American Independence was 

 signed at Philadelphia on the 4th of July, 177G, if our 



