41 



schools will appear in its fullness only after the 

 present conductors shall have gone to their 

 rest. Still even now the proofs are multiply- 

 ing that these schools are earnestly engaged in 

 this vitally important line of instruction and 

 training, and the early results are beginning to 

 appear. Many of their graduates are already 

 giving us the votaries of industrial science the 

 promise of future distinction. For example, 

 Michigan Agricultural College, which is not yet 

 twenty years old has prepared and furnished for 

 its own faculty a professor of entomology, and 

 a superintendent of its own gardens. It has 

 supplied for Cornell University a professo 

 of botany, for Kansas Agricultural College a 

 professor of agricultural chemistry, and a pro- 

 fessor of agriculture, for the university of 

 Wisconsin a professor of agricultural chemis- 

 try, for Harvard University an assistant in cryp- 

 togamic botany, and for the Iowa Agricultural 

 College a professor of economic botany. 



Iowa Agricultural College, opened less than 

 eight years ago, already numbers among its 80 

 graduates half a dozen professors, who give 

 instruction in such subjects as physics, economic 

 botany, and chemistry, practical agriculture, 

 stock breeding, veterinary science and practice. 

 It has sent out also several enthusiastic young 

 naturalists, who though the ink of their di- 

 plomas is scarce yet dry, are already doing ex- 

 cellent service for the state. One of them col- 

 lected the Iowa soils, and another the plants of 

 Iowa, making a complete classification and ar- 

 rangement of these for the Centennial Expo- 

 sition. I do not mention the many from these 

 institutions who are fine stock breeders, fruit 

 raisers, or engaged in the larger operations of 

 agriculture, nor do I note the hundreds of un- 

 der-graduates who go back annually to the 

 farm, adding to labor new ability and diligence 

 and who, scattered among the distant districts, 

 drop out of the public eye and are taken little 

 account of. These twe schools, the one of the 

 older, and the other of the younger class, stand 

 probably on a level in results with the national 

 schools of the other states, and these few first 

 fruits, I have ventured to mention, are only an 

 earnest of the full ripened harvest which time 

 will duly bring. The scheme devised and car- 

 ried through congress by Justin Morrill, was a 

 grand one, but its realization shall run and be 

 glorified by the granduer of its success. 



It remains to glance at the courses of study 

 in the national college composed of the 

 branches related to agriculture, which if adopt- 

 ed and wisely carried out, will most nearly ful- 

 fill the conditions of the congressional grant. 

 And first it seems to me that there ought, in 

 this important department, to be two curricula 

 -*one of which, consisting of all the sciences 

 related to agriculture, arranged with reference 

 to the comparative value of each, should pre- 

 pare the student for a large success in the most 

 skillful and economical management of the 



farm; in short make the scientific and practical 

 farmer. The other should be made up of spec- 

 ial courses, composed of single branches, with 

 their adjuncts arranged for the purpose of meet- 

 ing the wants of those students, who design to 

 pursue and practice through life some special 

 branch of learning related to agriculture. 

 Each of these sub-courses, conducted by a com- 

 petent professor, with sufficient assistance, and 

 furnished with abundant illustration would 

 finally supply the urgent necessity for such 

 workers in scientific agriculture, as the econom- 

 ic botanist, the entomologist, the producer of 

 new varieties of grain or fruits, the veterinary 

 surgeon, the farm architect and engineer, the 

 scientific breeder, and the agricultural writer. 



And I here record my belief that this 

 second course, composed of special courses for 

 the specialist in science, will be far more bene- 

 ficial to agriculture than the first. For the 

 graduates in the general agricultural sciences, 

 with some exceptions, expend their entire 

 means in getting through college, have nothing 

 left with which to buy farms, and have invested 

 too much in their educatien to engage as farm 

 laborers. Even if they did, it would scarcely 

 answer the design of the national college. I 

 have moreover, serious doubts whether these 

 graduates could quicken the progress of agri- 

 culture, by giving themselves up wholly to the 

 raising of crops. The farmers of the country 

 cannot be helped by adding to the mere bulk of 

 farm products ; which are already so great as to 

 cause frequently a glut in the market. It is not 

 an increased competition already too great, 

 that the farm needs, but such an advance 

 rather in the skill and economy of improved 

 processes, that a wider margin may be left be- 

 tween the cost of production and the market 

 price ; and the men who are helping most in 

 this direction, are not generally employed in the 

 raising of crops. They fill the editorial chairs, 

 they are in the students office, in the laboratory 

 or the workshops, or engaged wholly in observa- 

 tion and experiment or invention. If there be 

 any doubt of the fact, I could give, at the pres- 

 ent moment, such a list as would set all ques- 

 tions at rest. 



When therefore the students of our agricult- 

 tural colleges continue, after graduation, as 

 some do, the study of economic botany, entom- 

 ology or agricultural chemistry, or become the 

 teachers of agricultural science in any of its 

 numerous branches, it seems to me they are 

 taking the surest course to realize the purpose 

 of the congressional grant, i do not, however, 

 underrate the value to the student of manual 

 skill, and many colleges give abundant opportu- 

 nity for its attainment. 



The question then so often asked, "Do the 

 graduates of the agricultural colleges go on to 

 the farm" will not determine the \alue of ag- 

 ricultural education. As we have seen, it is not 

 the general farmer, who in a manner lives and 

 labors unto himself alone, but the specialist in 

 science by whose help the enemies of the farm 

 shall perish, the noxious plants be subjugated, 

 the noxious insects destroyed or rendered harm- 

 less, the domestic animals reach such perfec- 

 tion of form, as to answer their precise pur- 

 pose, the fruits and grains yield their sure re- 

 firnsa hundred fold, the farm dwelling be 

 changed to a model of convenience and beauty, 

 the farm itself reach the topmost limit of its 

 producing capacity, and the farmer's life be- 

 come the truest life that man can live. 



When all this shall be done and well done, 

 then will a prominent purpose of the industrial 

 colleges have been accomplished. 



Read also before a convention of the Presidents of 

 State Universities and Agn'-ultu-al Colleges in the 

 West, h^ld in Chicago, Nov. 23d, at which tne views it 

 advocates were ap roved by resolution unanimously 



p. 88 d. 



