No. 4.] AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES. 77 



sured that we shall meet with a glorious success. We should 

 be inspired rather than to be at all disappointed. 



Prof. G. F. Mills. It is of very little consequence to 

 you to know what I did as a boy and as a young man. But, 

 that you may know that I have reason for sympathy with 

 agriculture and agricultural education, I wish to say that I 

 know what it is to hold a plough. I have been in the hay 

 field before the day of mowing machines, when we had to 

 swing the scythe. The son of a farmer and the grandson of 

 a farmer, I feel that I have a right to say something to those 

 who to-day are interested in agriculture. I think every one 

 here must feel grateful to the lecturer of the afternoon, who 

 has suggested so many valuable lines of thought and who 

 has shown us so clearly the mission, of the agricultural col- 

 leges. I say education is a broad subject. It is not easy 

 for us to compass it in a short time. I am not disposed to 

 discuss methods of education, or even to say much about the 

 particular subjects of education. I must say, gentlemen, 

 that I think we make a great mistake when we decry the 

 work and the influence of these broad-minded, profound 

 thinkers and scholars, who have passed the torch of learning 

 from its home where it was lighted, passed it on to the western 

 nations, who in their turn passed it over to the island which 

 was the home of our own people, who also passed it across 

 the great ocean to us, and when it was brought to the 

 Atlantic coast it could not be held there, but was passed 

 again to the west, across the Mississippi, across the prairie 

 to the Pacific coast, and so on until it should complete the 

 circle of the earth. I say that we make a great mistake, 

 it seems to me, w T hen by our public addresses we attempt 

 to cast any discredit upon the work of such men. Their 

 work has broadened education, developed it, prepared the 

 ground to make it possible for the day to dawn when the 

 agricultural colleges and the colleges of scientific investiga- 

 tion and instruction should be demanded in the interests of 

 the people. 



A writer in speaking of New England spoke of "the 

 anaemic towns that are dying for the want of blood," and I 

 think some of us may know that that is a correct character- 

 ization of a great many New England towns. It is the mis- 



