No. 4.] AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES. .57 



world. As a matter of fact, it is everywhere conceded that 

 a young man should choose the largest opportunity for suc- 

 cess which opens before him ; and, with the prevailing stand- 

 ards of success, what can we expect? 



But, granting that a proportion of farmers' sons, who are 

 fit material for the developing and moulding influences of 

 the college class room, are disposed to adopt agriculture as 

 their life work, there are still reasons why even many of 

 these have not been inclined to attend the agricultural col- 

 lege, chief of which has been an inappreciation of the value 

 of science in practical agriculture. Twenty-five years ago 

 there was a general attitude of skepticism towards the so- 

 called scientific farming, or book farming, as it was sneer- 

 ingly termed. While this attitude has been modified, you 

 will still find, if at farmers' institutes you enter into con- 

 versation with young men, prospective farmers with a good 

 outlook, that they have serious doubts whether after all it 

 will really pay to spend four years at the agricultural college 

 in preparation for the life of a farmer. One cause of this 

 doubt is that these young men have no conception of scien- 

 tific truth or its value. They have not turned the first page 

 of the book of nature. They have never been shown the 

 law and order that are everywhere about them, and therefore 

 they do not see how surely added power comes to any man's 

 life when he can understandingly control and direct the 

 forces of nature. The early home training in part, but more 

 especially the common school training, has been responsible 

 for this ignorance about the most important part of human 

 knowledge. 



It was into the midst of such an environment that thirty 

 years ago the agricultural colleges were projected, with all 

 the traditions of education and ideals of success opposed to 

 the new proposition that the future farmer should be a col- 

 lege man. Ignorance of facts and methods existed on every 

 hand, and there were no examples which could be used as 

 object lessons in illustrating the value of scientific knowledge 

 to agriculture. The colleges of agriculture have not only 

 had laid upon them the burdeu of teaching applied science 

 in a satisfactory manner, but also the greater task of creating 

 a demand for the education which they have ollered. These 



