448 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



their original purpose is so fully and constantly recognized 

 and carried out by judicious, painstaking work, that the cur- 

 rents of education shall be once fairly turned toward these 

 new channels. When once fairly turned, that they will con- 

 tinue to flow can no more be doubted than we can doubt 

 the success of any natural process when not artificially ob- 

 structed. 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 founding the industrial colleges of the several States. 

 The provisions 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 pro- 

 motion of the mechanic arts, and two-thirds were devoted to 

 founding a college at Amherst for the special work of agri- 

 culture. 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 agriculture the leading idea, while it 

 secures rigid training in military tactics and provides such 

 a range of studies in science, literature and philosophy, as 

 shall, in the words of the bill, promote " lihei^al education.''' 



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

 nurseries, etc. It has college buildings, laboratory, botanic 

 museum, plant-houses, gardens and nurseries, so that provi- 

 sion 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, vineyard and 

 orchard. The Durfee plant-house and propagating houses 

 afford 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 wan, that the students from the Agricultural College 

 shall not be mere artisans, having learned a trade or business 

 and nothing more, but be liberally educated, so that, as 

 farmers, they shall rank in intellectual training with those 

 who chose what have heretofore been called the "learned 



