784 



SCIENCE 



LJN.S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 



mental sciences and present the lowest feas- 

 ible minimum of ultra-practical subjects. 



Remarks concerning pedagogical form 

 may not now be pertinent to any existing 

 situation. It has been said, however, that, 

 in the past, agricultural subjects have been 

 taken out of the normal pedagogical order 

 and placed among the studies of the fresh- 

 man year, or otherwise distributed illog- 

 ieally in the curriculum, simply that a 

 student's attention shall be held to agricul- 

 ture and more graduates in agriculture 

 thereby secured. Doubtless such trans- 

 gressions are not committed now, but if 

 they are they look very much like an at- 

 tempt to lasso young men and drag them 

 at the heels of expediency. What justifica- 

 tion is there for invading the intellectual 

 rights of a student or imperiling his future 

 success by giving him less than the best pos- 

 sible training; and how useless such an ex- 

 pedient! "We shall not coerce a man's 

 choice of a life work, however hard we may 

 try to do so. Young men will continue to 

 enter the door that they believe opens to 

 them the largest opportunity, as they al- 

 ways have done and as they ought to do. 



It is the subject matter that should en- 

 gage the attention of the agricultural stu- 

 dent concerning which we are likely to 

 differ most widely in opinion. Those who 

 are seeking for members of a faculty or 

 station staff are bound to concede that, as 

 a rule, altogether too many graduates are 

 poorly trained for these positions, largely 

 because they are poorly fitted in the sci- 

 ences fundamental to the line of work in 

 which they offer themselves. 



For instance, candidates for positions in 

 horticulture are generally obliged to con- 

 fess a woeful lack of acquaintance with 

 physiological botany. Those supposed to 

 be specially trained in animal nutrition 

 rarely have the necessary knowledge of 



organic and biological chemistry, and grad- 

 uates in agronomy are likely to be more 

 familiar with superficial facts than with 

 soil chemistry and the science of plant nu- 

 trition. Judging cattle, corn and fruit; 

 grafting trees, visiting orchards, calcula- 

 ting rations are exercises of small training 

 value,- even small vocational value, com- 

 pared with severe attention to the processes 

 of nature that underlie agricultural prac- 

 tise of all kinds. If many of the colleges 

 expect to give their graduates a good start 

 on the road to success as teachers and sta- 

 tion workers they should seriously consider 

 a curriculum that deals more largely with 

 the fundamental sciences and less with 

 agricultural technics as a superstructure. 



And should not the same policy be fol- 

 lowed with those who are to enter practical 

 agriculture? A fact of fundamental im- 

 portance in this connection is that the 

 farmer is equipped for success in farm 

 practise not so much through expert handi- 

 craft as through a knowledge of conditions 

 that determine the successful growth of 

 plants and animals; in other words, an 

 acquaintance with nature 's processes. The 

 mechanical details of agriculture are com- 

 paratively simple, but the control of na- 

 ture's resources is complex and difiScult. 

 With great respect for the opinions of those 

 who hold opposite views, I am constrained 

 to express the conviction that the man is 

 best prepared for the life of a farmer who 

 knows the most about the fundamental sci- 

 ences and their relation to his vocation, and 

 for this reason I can but regard the time 

 as comparatively inefficiently spent that is 

 devoted in college to observations and ex- 

 ercises of an ultra practical character, or 

 to gaining information that is easily ac- 

 quired from the ordinary experiences of 

 practical life. This doctrine may be reac- 

 tionary but it is in accordance with move- 



