27 



And here I take the opportunity of saying what should in all 

 justice be said in defense of the early workers in this college 

 of agriculture. During the first thirty years of the life of this 

 institution the boys who entered here, in the exercise of their 

 inalienable right of choice, had a perverse way of electing to 

 study engineering in some of its phases rather than agriculture. 

 Because this was so, various persons from the platform and in 

 the press, being possessed of a degree of ignorance that is essen- 

 tial to severe and unmodified criticism, declared that the fault 

 was with the administration of the college, that its faculty was 

 not in sympathy with agriculture and deliberately led the young 

 m^inds under its care into the by and forbidden paths of engi- 

 neering and the studies that had always been a part of the older 

 curricula. 



Those of you who are familiar with the history of those 

 earlier days know that this criticism was not just. You know 

 that bona-Ude agricultural students were enthusiastically wel- 

 comed as an oasis in a desert of engineering proclivity and were 

 given all the opportunities that the means and the equipment of 

 the college afforded, because the presence of such students was 

 the surest way of convincing the public that the institution was 

 fulfilling its real function. I assert that no men have ever 

 espoused the cause of agricultural education who were more 

 loyal or zealous in the performance of their duty than were, 

 those pioneers in a work beset with inexperience, crude peda- 

 gogical tools, public prejudice and untoward economic condi- 

 tions. I give all honor to the teachers of today with their class 

 rooms full of students of agriculture, but I want them, with 

 humble minds, to remember that in educational means and 

 methods they have entered into the fruit of other men's labors, 

 that the tide of economic affairs is in their favor and that had 

 they begun their work forty years ago they would be fighting 

 a battle instead of enjoying a victory. In those earlier days, 

 the college of agriculture and the business of agriculture were 

 ill the grip of powerful and far-reaching influences that neither 

 could nullify, and the depopulation of the farms and the lack 

 of population in the agricultural class rooms, were due to the 

 same general causes. Let us rejoice that a new dav is here 

 with a returning tide of interest in the land. 



But I have digressed from my theme. I return to it to sav 

 that the most serious result of the conditions I have outlined has 



