158 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



from his military training while he was at the college I would 

 not have had him lose for anything." He was unfortunate in 

 that he was not able to stand erect. His legs were bowed. 

 The father said, " In some way the military drill at the Agri- 

 cultural College took that thing all out of him, so that when 

 he came home at the end of the year he was able to stand 

 erect." 



The Chairman. I would like to ask Professor Brooks if 

 there are not large numbers who leave college well fitted for 

 land surveying. • 



Professor Brooks. In answer to the question I may say 

 that there are a very consideral)le number that engage in the 

 pursuits mentioned, and naturally they are inclined towards 

 those branches of business which have a relation to rural 

 affairs, drainage, sewerage, the utilization of sewage through 

 irrigation, road building and road improvement and vari- 

 ous kindred subjects. These are subjects which very 

 naturally engage the attention of men who have an ap- 

 preciation of agriculture in its manifold relations, and 

 amono; the graduates of our very first class we number one 

 who is to-day one of the most prominent, if not the most 

 prominent, of any engineer in the city of Boston who is con- 

 nected with work of that kind. He has planned and exe- 

 cuted numerous important works for various public institu- 

 tions and for towns and cities, works providing for the agri- 

 cultural utilization of sewage and drainage. The engineer- 

 ing profession ought to receive much greater attention than 

 it does, so that those of our numl)er who become engineers 

 may truly serve the cause of agriculture in manifold ways. 



I want to say just a word more, what has been hinted at 

 in what Governor Hoard and some others have said better 

 perhaps than I can say it ; but I want to be a little more 

 explicit, because I would like to direct attention to the im- 

 portance of this subject, and that is, the possible and prob- 

 able influence, as our graduates increase in number, upon the 

 public schools of the State. I thoroughly believe that thus 

 far the tendency of the training given in the public schools 

 which the farmers have supported has been to educate away 

 from the farm, to give a smattering of this or that, but that 

 they are entirely apart from this relation to the practical 



