66 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



tain New England denominational colleges were "just about 

 as much farmers' colleges " as a particular land-grant college 

 which was mentioned. Such assertions are made in igno- 

 rance. Many educated persons have little conception of the 

 real and essential difference between a course in applied 

 science and such courses in the sciences as are occasion- 

 ally offered in the old-time institutions. They do not under- 

 stand how much nearer the agricultural course touches the 

 conditions and needs of human life and activities than does 

 one in which the mere abstractions of chemistry and biology 

 are presented. 



I venture to affirm, that only through the establishment of 

 agricultural colleges has such a course of study as I have 

 outlined above become possible. The traditional standards 

 prevailing in the classical institutions of the country at the 

 time the State colleges were founded were an effectual ob- 

 stacle to their teaching the relations of science to the arts in 

 a proper and adequate manner. Some of the older colleges 

 have not even yet become reconciled to this new departure 

 in the matter and manner of a higher education, and they 

 still have lingering doubts whether God's living, pulsating 

 universe is so worthy an object of investigation and study 

 as the language and literature of departed peoples. To be 

 sure, scientific courses of a high order are now established 

 in some of the classical institutions ; but nowhere outside of 

 the agricultural college will you find certain facts of science 

 presented to the student in the sequence and manner which 

 constitute the genius and specific value of the agricultural 

 college class room. These new institutions which we are 

 discussing were the inevitable outcome of any well-considered 

 successful attempt to organize for teaching purposes the 

 knowledge of science in its relations to the farmer's calling. 

 They have their necessary place in the material progress of 

 this scientific age, as experience has proven. 



The boards of control of the land-grant colleges have been 

 intrusted not only with a special educational effort in the in- 

 terests of agriculture but also with the investigation of prob- 

 lems important to agriculture. The experiment stations are 

 in most cases departments of the State colleges, and very 

 properly so, for they are a logical result of college influence. 



