No. 4.] RURAL PROGRESS. 145 



question of creating in the minds of pupils this sentiment 

 for agriculture. Not that they Avill try to keep'them all on 

 the farm, but that they will teach the child the riches of 

 country life. In other words, you must introduce into our 

 common schools nature study of a sort which will eventually 

 lead to the study of agriculture. 



Then we must have — what we don't have to-day — a 

 complete system of agricultural schools, which will take the 

 boy (and the girl too, for that matter) from these common 

 country schools and give him a school training in agricul- 

 ture and for aoriculture. 



Now, just a few words about the agricultural college. 

 The agricultural college, to my mind, must do three distinct 

 things. They are equally important, and not one must be 

 n collected. 



First, it must experiment. It is doing that through the 

 experiment stations, but it is only making a beginning. 

 The experiment stations in our country need more money 

 and more men. Thev arc just beo-innin^ to find out what 

 their work is. 



In the second place, the colleges nuist teach students who 

 are going to farm. There used to be an idea among agri- 

 cultural people that the college was to train men for experi- 

 ment stations or professorships, and now and then a manager 

 of a great estate where they pa}^ great wages ; and that it was 

 not expected to train farmers, because a l)oy who wants to 

 farm cannot aiford to go to college four years and then go 

 back to the farm. If that were true, then my hopes for 

 agriculture in this country would be very gloomy indeed. 

 We must have conditions such that a man of average abilit}', 

 even if he doesn't have a large amount of capital, but if he 

 does go through college, shall be able to find a satisfactory 

 career upon the farm. One of the functions of every agri- 

 cultural colleofc in New England is to educate a vastly larger 

 number of vouno: men for ajjriculture than they are edu- 

 eating to-day. The tide has turned in the middle Avest ; 

 the ao-ricultural colleires are ojrowino-. I believe the tide is 

 turnino; in New Eno-land, and that in the next few years we 

 shall witness a wonderful development along this line. 



What we most need in New Eno;land is not so nmch a 



