40 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



(1.) A " pedagogical form " is a " necessity for teaching any 

 subject," meaning by pedagogical form a logical or progressive 

 series of lessons. 



(2.) The Courses in Mathematics and Classics have taken on 

 a fixed pedagogical form, whicli (inferentially) gives them a maxi- 

 mum value as a means of education. 



(3.) Courses of study related to agriculture and to engineer- 

 ing, especially the former, have suffered from lack of pedagogical 

 form. 



(4.) Engineering, because so closely allied to mathematics, 

 has found a pedagogical form " ready to its hand in the estab- 

 lished form of mathematical teaching,'" and so is now taught in 

 fairly satisfactory courses of study. 



(5.) Courses in Agriculture are in a present " practically 

 inextricable" "confusion," because "with such material for 

 teaching as is now available there is no perspective possible in 

 teaching agriculture ; " . . . " and where no other science is 

 involved there is nothing of that orderly sequence in the prog- 

 ress of instruction which has made the classical education, and 

 to some degree the scientific education, a process commanding 

 respect." 



These latter statements are mostly quotations from the address 

 under discussion, and are those to which I shall chiefly confine 

 my attention. 



Dr. Murkland's strictures on the Courses of Agriculture that 

 now exist are based in part on two assumptions : 



(1.) That agriculture is, or is susceptible of becoming, an in- 

 dependent science, so that in classifying it for teaching purposes 

 we may properly speak of " other sciences." 



(2 ) That the sciences, such as the chemical and biological, 

 which we now recognize as somewhat "precisely formulated," 

 are not a proper and essential part of a Course in Agricult- 

 ure, and therefore chemistry, physics, and biology do not, and 

 may not, properly lend their pedagogical form to teaching 

 engineering. 



For myself, I cannot accept these assumptions. Agriculture 

 is an art, and the Act of Congress of 1862 directed us to " teach 

 the sciences related " thereto. To be sure we may speak of the 

 theories of scientific agriculture as a science, but in order to 



