No. 4.] AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES. 61 



ence, what has been transpiring with the student ? He has 

 been developing rapidly all this time. His training has had 

 an effect upon his intellectual status not unlike that which 

 was the result of the time-honored classical course. New 

 views have opened before him, new ambitions have been 

 aroused, he has become conscious of enlarged powers, and 

 he goes forth from college halls determined to be and to do. 

 The whole man has been quickened by new impulses. His 

 standards of thought and his measurement of success have 

 been changed. The young graduate, as he steps into the 

 world, pauses to survey the field before him. He feels the 

 spur of his acquired mastery over matter and thought. As he 

 looks out upon human society, he observes that some have 

 risen above their fellows in reputation, in power or in the 

 money recompense which they are receiving for the use of 

 their time, and he is almost irresistibly called to follow in 

 the footsteps of those who have attained such apparent suc- 

 cess. He has no capital, perhaps, and so can he be blamed 

 if he consents to sell his time to the highest bidder? What 

 would you do if in his place ? He is poor and has all the 

 aspirations of the best New England manhood, and he longs 

 to find himself in the midst of great opportunities for devel- 

 opment. Shall he go back to the farm as a hired servant? 

 What would you do if in his place? If he has broad acres 

 of his own or may acquire them, and loves the farm, if he can 

 see the great possible usefulness that lies before him as an 

 apostle of enlightened agriculture and the high standard of 

 living that he may attain with the peace and beauty and in- 

 spiration of nature all around him, then he should return 

 to his farm, and we give him our hearty welcome. No more 

 useful citizen can be found than he may become, and his 

 measure of recompense and satisfaction will be all the larger 

 because of his college training. 



I ask you to remember, however, that every young man 

 is compelled to consider the relation which necessarily exists 

 between preparation and opportunity. We cannot avoid 

 this inquiry, To what extent do the opportunities in practical 

 agriculture which are open to farmers' sons justify a college 

 preparation? Perhaps, with the ideal rather than with the 

 actual in view, you will at once say that any man who pro- 



