54 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



shall not discuss specifically. Under another head I shall 

 try to defend what have been settled upon as the essentials 

 of these courses. I will only remark at this point that in 

 my judgment the average farmer's son who graduates from 

 your college is as well fitted to enter upon the successful 

 management of a farm as is the raw graduate from the med- 

 ical school to treat a case of typhoid fever or any other 

 serious disease. It was facetiously remarked to me not 

 long since that " The farmer and the doctor are alike in one 

 respect, — the soil covers the mistakes of both." How many 

 errors of knowledge and judgment lie buried in mother earth 

 we may never know. 



Let us now consider the first two assertions in the order 

 in which they are stated. Do not suppose, however, that 

 in presenting my views at this time I claim to speak ex- 

 cathedra. I shall only give to you the convictions that 

 have come to me since I entered one of these institutions 

 twenty-eight years ago, during which time, as student, 

 teacher and station director, I have been almost continuously 

 in touch with this new educational effort. Permit me also 

 to suggest at this point that it is wise to discuss this matter 

 in the frankest manner. I fear that some of us have been 

 cherishing delusions, and that we have even avoided facing 

 in their true light the conditions and problems that pertain 

 to agricultural education. We cannot afford to retain this 

 attitude. The situation demands that prejudice and consid- 

 erations of expediency shall no longer prevent a full and free 

 recognition of the actual facts that are involved in the efforts 

 of education and research to which some of us are giving 

 earnest conscientious attention. We should no longer re- 

 ject the lessons of experience, and thereby delay real 

 progress. 



First of all, then, it is an undisputed fact that compara- 

 tively few young men do enter the full courses of agricult- 

 ure that lead to a degree, and fewer that graduate adopt 

 practical agriculture as their main life work. This being 

 the case, it is important for us to know the reasons for such 

 a condition. Where shall we seek for an explanation, — 

 in the colleges, or elsewhere? Are there scores of young 

 men hungering to be properly instructed in the relation of 



