CHEMICAL DEPARTMENT FULLY ENDOWED. 119 



will not be able to make any original researches. It is one of 

 the great mistakes of our learned institutions that the professors, 

 or those connected with instruction, are overloaded with a 

 variety of duties, which prevents them from doing any one well. 

 But we have an example already in the right direction. There 

 is one university in the United States, two months old, the 

 organization of which is superior to all those that have existed 

 before. It is the Cornell University, at Ithaca, in the State of 

 New York. That institution v^^ent into operation on the 9th of 

 October of this year, and it begins with two professors of chem- 

 istry, each one with an assistant, and within six months a third 

 professor is to be appointed, with an assistant also. It has a 

 laboratory larger than that at Harvard, larger than that at 

 Columbia College, and it will have, this term, one hundred and 

 twelve students entered for work in the chemical laboratory. 

 The chemical instruction, (I speak of that only ; many other 

 departments are as well organized as that ;) is divided into the 

 general department, the agricultural department and the manu- 

 facturing department ; and each one of the three professors will 

 have his independent laboratory and his private assistant to con- 

 duct the work, so that the students shall not only have the 

 advantage of the extensive instruction which the professor can 

 give, but be allowed to work in the laboratory and learn to do 

 themselves what they are taught. Now I say that you should 

 at once insist that in your Agricultural College there should be 

 more than one professor of chemistry, and that the different 

 branches of agricultural chemistry should be in the hands of 

 independent professors, so that each professor should have some 

 time to make investigations by which he will advance the gen- 

 eral knowledge of his special department ; for, believe me, the 

 professor who is exhausted by teaching cannot even learn what 

 others do to keep up with the times, still less contribute to the 

 advancement of knowledge in his science ; and if he is not in 

 a position to contribute in that way to the progress of his own 

 department, he falls behind, the institution falls behind, and, 

 with this, the whole standard on the subject among us. 



Now I think that the management of the Agricultural Col- 

 lege, within the more recent period of its existence, has been 

 such as to promise a success ; and if you would put your shoul- 

 ders together and urge the organization of the college on that 



