358 MICHIGAN STATE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE 



the objection was not sustained by the chairman, in view of the 

 prominence of the speaker, and the seniority of the Michigan 

 College. It clearly developed during the later discussions that 

 Michigan College considered that she had already solved the 

 problem, and that what has since borne the designation of the 

 "Michigan Plan," viz., a large proportion of student labor, "to 

 keep up the habit and not wean the pupils from the farm," was 

 the only admissible method of agricultural education. The 

 predominance of opinion at the adjournment of the convention 

 seemed to favor that plan, although many vigorous protests 

 against the use of so much of the students' time for mere mechan- 

 ical exercise were voiced. 



It is hardly necessary to dwell elaborately, before this audi- 

 ence, upon the change of views and practice which experience 

 has brought about in the Michigan College itself, and upon the 

 gradual evolution of the "Wisconsin Plan," according to which 

 it is distinctly recognized that the colleges organized under the 

 Morrill Act cannot educate the bulk of the farmers' sons to be 

 farmers, any more than the universities can directly educate the 

 bulk of the rest of the population to their several pursuits. It is 

 now recognized that in agricultural education as in every other, 

 there must be a gradation of schools and of instruction, from 

 the primary through graded grammar and high schools ; so that 

 it shall be the special function of the colleges to train, in the 

 main, agricultural experts and teachers, the lack of whom at this 

 time offers the most serious obstacle to the effective organiza- 

 tion of instruction in agriculture in the lower schools, where alone 

 the bulk of the population can be trained in anything. It is the 

 attempt, made at first, to perform the physically impossible task 

 of satisfactorily combining elementary and collegiate training 

 within the colleges themselves, that has long made of them a 

 bone of contention. For they were popularly charged with 

 "educating the boys away from the farm," while in reaHty they 

 were merely fulfilling their prescribed duty of giving instruction 



