AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN THE SCHOOLS. 121 



Pres. Butterfield referred also to the Davis bill, introduced into 

 Congress by Congressman Davis of INIinnesota, which provides 

 $8,000,000 to be distributed to states on the per capita basis. 

 The bill calls for the establishment of schools of agriculture and 

 mechanic arts in each state, and under its provisions agricultural 

 schools can be provided in agricultural sections. 



The income is limited to ten cents per capita, thus Massachusetts 

 would receive about S325,000 for this purpose. He thought that 

 the bill would not be likely to pass this season, but it was being 

 pushed by interested parties and would, no doubt, soon become a 

 law. 



Robert Cameron inquired how far this agricultural school would 

 carry a boy. Would he be able to analyze soil and water? He 

 further asked what the boys would be able to do after being gradu- 

 ated from the agricultural school rather than the high school. 



Pres. Butterfield replied that people very often mistake the work 

 of the farmer. Analyzing soil and w^ater is the province of the man 

 in the laboratory and not the farmer. In training farmers we do 

 not make chemists of them; we do cry to make them understand 

 the fundamental principles of farming. He said that in some 

 cases in the college work men do not get the best results. Some 

 were not fitted or were incapable of making a success of the voca- 

 tion. The ideal of the college standing back of its graduates had 

 not been reached. A boy who is quite capable of doing the re- 

 quired work in good shape in the college might, when placed in a 

 position where he must do the real work and make it a success, 

 be a failure. He said that he thought the course in an agricul- 

 tural college could be further developed by requiring that every 

 boy should have had at least one summer of practical work in 

 managing a farm. 



