22 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



tute, at Troy, New York, in 1842, till to-day, engineering, 

 in some of its divisions, has been the predominant department 

 in the industrial institutions in the United States. Allied 

 with mathematics as engineering always is, demanding a 

 thorough preparation in mathematic instruction as it does, 

 this department of industrial education has easil}^ adopted 

 the pedagogical form ready to its hand in the established 

 form of mathematical teaching. In affording new details of 

 application, engineering has not had to grapple with the 

 difficulty of supplying or developing the form itself; it has 

 found the form already prepared for its use. 



This is something which should never be forgotten by those 

 who are moved to speak or write upon this subject. It is 

 easy enough, for instance, to complain that in the industrial 

 or technical institutions of the country agriculture is over- 

 shadowed by mechanics. It ought to be easy to see that 

 while this may be the case, while it is naturally, even neces- 

 sarily, the case, it is so simply as a temporary phase of the 

 general problem of industrial education. It is not that one 

 department is held in higher regard than another. It is 

 simply that one department found a teaching form, ready to 

 its use, while another faced, and faces still, the necessity of 

 developing its own form. No one has advanced a form for 

 teaching, agriculture, for instance, so definite, so well arranged 

 in progressive sequence, that it could be generally adopted 

 as, on the whole, a satisfactory method for universal use. 

 It may be safely prophesied that no one will suggest such a 

 form for some years to come. And the institutions in which 

 agriculture is taught are thrown thereby into a confusion 

 which is for the present practically inextricable. What re- 

 quirements shall be demanded of the students who enter such 

 institutions ? How shall the studies apportioned to the suc- 

 cessive years be determined? How long shall the prescribed 

 course be ? What degree shall be conferred upon completion 

 of the course? These are questions which find answers as 

 many as there are institutions involved. And this confusion 

 cannot be reduced to order until it is possible to apply to 

 every department in such institutions some well-defined form 

 of teaching, such that the progress in one department shall be 

 as definite and as real as the allied progress in every other 

 department. 



