l6 TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN TROPICAL AGRICULTURE 



be more rigorous and clear thinking as to the aims and 

 ends of this training than appears commonly to exist. 

 It is to be remembered that agriculture in its daily 

 practice is an art rather than a science, though it makes 

 liberal and increasing use of various sciences. There is, 

 therefore, a danger in imagining that a knowledge of 

 agriculture to suffice for earning a livelihood may be 

 acquired by learning the sciences on which agriculture is 

 based. A little thought will show that this is fallacious; 

 this erroneous idea lies at the root of the objection of 

 the working farmer or planter to the college trained 

 youth, and it may be admitted that in not very remote 

 times this objection was well founded, for agricultural 

 colleges were, in many instances, deficient in the means 

 of teaching the art of agriculture while equipped to teach 

 its underlying sciences. 



Another point requires careful setting out, namely, 

 that not all who attend agricultural colleges contemplate 

 the full practice of agriculture that is, the raising and 

 selling of crops as their means of livelihood; many 

 students look to the following of limited lines of work as 

 specialists, either as agricultural chemists, entomologists, 

 plant pathologists, and so forth. It is clear that these 

 need different training from those who are destined to 

 become the actual practising farmers or planters; in the 

 former case the knowledge of certain sciences is all- 

 important, requiring to be coupled with a less perfect 

 proficiency in the arts of agriculture; in the latter the 

 art, or arts, of agriculture are all-important, the sciences 

 merely accessory. 



In order that the agricultural college may adequately 

 teach, even in a limited degree, the arts of agriculture, 

 it is essential that the college shall be associated with 

 something in the nature of a farm or experiment station 

 where the actual agricultural operations of the district 

 are carried on; unless these operations are conducted on a 

 fairly large scale and, indeed, in almost any case, the 

 knowledge to be gained will lack fulness and complete- 

 ness, so that the student of an agricultural college will 

 benefit by spending some time upon a farm or plantation, 

 in addition to his work at the college. 



