14 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



broad and generous plan upon which they were founded. It is 

 doubtful if they will ever accomplish the great work for which 

 they were intended, until their original purpose is so fully and 

 constantly recognized and carried out by judicious, painstaking 

 work that the currents of education shall be once fairly turned 

 tow^ard these new channels. When once fairly turned, that 

 they will continue to flow can no more be doubted than we can 

 doubt the success of any natural process when not artificially 

 obstructed. An education that "gives boys what they need 

 to daily use when they become men " commends itself as 

 rational and practical. All true education should aim at this. 

 And this certainly is the idea that is embodied in the bill found- 

 ing the Industrial Colleges of the several States. The provi- 

 sions of this bill were accepted by Massachusetts. One-third of 

 the funds received from the United States was given to the 

 Institute of Technology in Boston, for the promotion of the 

 mechanic arts, and two-thirds were devoted to founding a col- 

 lege at Amherst, for the special work of agriculture. 



By the gift, to the Institute of Technology, the Agricultural 

 College has been freed from much labor in building up a 

 Mechanical Department — a fact that has been lost sight of by 

 some — and is left free to carry out the idea of a college making 

 ao;riculture the leading idea, while it secures rioid training in 

 military tactics, and provides such a range of studies in science, 

 literature and philosophy, as shall, in the words of the bill, pro- 

 mote " liberal education. ^^ 



The college now has 383 acres of land for farm, gardens, nurs- 

 eries, etc. It has college buildings, laboratory, botanic mu- 

 seum, plant-houses, gardens and nurseries, so that provision is 

 made for teaching: all the sciences that relate to the cultivation 

 of the soil, and these sciences are practically applied to all the 

 work of the farm, garden, vinej^ard and orchard. The Durfee 

 plant house and propagating houses afiibrd practical instruction 

 the year round. 



The course of study aims to do what the original bill declared 

 should be done — give a practical knowledge of agriculture and 

 horticulture, and at the same time so educate the 7nan that the 

 students from the Aoricultural Colleo;e shall not be mere arti- 

 sans, having learned a trade or business and nothing more, but 

 be libei-ally educated, so that, as farmers, they shall rank in 



