CO BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



storehouse of thought and knowledge, in order that, without 

 regard to their proposed callings, they may understand their 

 political, intellectual and spiritual relations. 



Again, shall we train the four-years agricultural college 

 student severely in the sciences ? We must, or fail of our 

 purpose. Pedagogically speaking, it is impossible to suc- 

 cessfully teach the application of the sciences to the arts 

 without a previous knowledge on the part of the pupil of 

 the fundamental principles and facts of the sciences them- 

 selves. It is for this reason that short-course students of 

 agriculture are so serious a problem to the teacher. Some 

 men who pretend to teach or practice agricultural science, 

 but who are ignorant of fundamentals, are like a ship with- 

 out a rudder, — one never knows where they will land. 



Finally, as now organized, the courses in agriculture dif- 

 fer from those in engineering in that the former involve less 

 of mechanical manipulation but depend more for their value 

 upon a discussion of the relations of science to agricultural 

 operations. Agriculture as an art involves a minimum of 

 expert mechanical work. The success of the farmer consists 

 not so much in the skill of his hands as in the ability to place 

 the soil and fertilizers and crops and foods and animals in 

 their right relations, — to avoid, in other words, the viola- 

 tion of natural law. Aside from a few expert processes, the 

 mechanical or manual side as well as the business side of 

 farming can be better learned by experience on a farm that 

 is being managed for business purposes than on a college 

 farm. The time in college is all too short for the learning 

 of principles and for the development of the man, without 

 giving time to those things which may be acquired more 

 cheaply and efficiently elsewhere. I would set this high 

 standard of education in the agricultural college, because 

 their graduates are to be the few among many. Some of 

 them are to be leaders and teachers, and therefore their train- 

 ing should be broad and thorough. They should not be 

 false lights, and as men they should be known as types of 

 cultured manhood. 



But, during the severe study and discipline of four years, 

 along the lines which we accept as essential to the proper 

 education of the man and to his training in matters of sci- 



