No. 4.] AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 2G7 



The Hon. Jerry Rusk well said, " Let it be the glory of 

 the great American people to make science the handmaid of 

 agriculture." 



Professor Henderson of Chicago University says : " Edu- 

 cation is not merely preparation for life, it is life. To make 

 manual work honorable, we must give it rank and place 

 along with literature, history, art and classics, and thus 

 associate the useful occupations inseparably with ideal pur- 

 suits." Horace Mann said : " Remember that the learning: of 

 the few is despotism, the learning of the multitude is liberty, 

 and that intelligent and principled liberty is fame, wisdom, 

 power. The well-educated operative does more work, does 

 it better, earns more money, commands more confidence, 

 rises faster and to higher posts in his employment than the 

 uneducated workman can." And this is what we claim this 

 college is doing among the farming people. She is pointing 

 to the future calling of the farmer, and not away from it. 

 Science as an abstract thing is useful to only a few ; but 

 when science, extracted from close research, study and inves- 

 tigation, is put before the people for popular practical use, 

 it becomes a blessing and an educator ; and this is a part of 

 the work of the college. 



Farming to-day is more of a science than formerly. The 

 successful farmer must make every day a school day ; must 

 open his mind to new ideas ; must be a constant learner in 

 the labor of life and the laboratory of nature ; must know 

 more about his calling than his ancestors, or he will surely 

 go to the wall. 



It is to the general auxiliary work of the institution that I 

 would call especial attention. President Goodell, in his re- 

 port for 1897, thus quaintly alludes to some of the work of the 

 college : " The farmers are coming more and more to depend 

 upon the college, and what is true now is just as surely 

 going to increase in the future. In nothing does this more 

 strikingly appear than in the matter of correspondence. 

 During the last twelve months 5,528 letters have been 

 answered in the experiment department alone. What does 

 this mean? It means that at 5,528 points we have touched 

 the interests of the agricultural life of this State. It means 

 that 940 dairymen have wanted to know about butter fats, or 



