84 ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



from the college. I have stated that it is within the ability of 

 any young man to take a course at the agricultural college and 

 get a degree from the university if he wanted to do it, and it 

 would pay him to do that from the very lowest standpoint, the 

 standpoint of dollars and cents. Anybody that has gone through 

 the university and taken the agricultural course would bear me 

 out in this — it pays to do it from the standpoint of dollars and 

 cents. But beyond all this and of far greater value it will pay 

 him through the wider outlook it will give him on life and his 

 duties as a citizen, and it will make him a far better citizen. 



The old idea of the agricultural college, and the idea some 

 of us had of it several years ago, was a place to learn farming. 

 The students were taught how to milk and churn, how to sow 

 and reap and bind, plow and harrow and prune and graft, and 

 feed and all of these things were taught with a very little of the 

 science upon which these various operations were founded. But 

 all this is now changed, the practical work illustrates the work 

 done in the class room, so that a student is instructed along 

 the lines where he will get the most good from the time he spends 

 in the university. A great many of our students are special 

 students, that is, they cannot come up to university requirements 

 for entrance into the regular college work, but they may take 

 any class they are prepared to take. Any student can go to 

 the university, enter any class he is prepared to enter and stay 

 any length of time, so we have not seen much necessity of con- 

 ducting the short courses that are so popular in some institutions. 

 If a man goes to college to take the short course he has an idea 

 that the whole subject is boiled down for him ann 1 that he will 

 get the benefit of four years' study in a twelve weeks' course. 

 Some work holidays and Sundays and get mental dyspepsia try- 

 ing to accomplish so much in a twelve weeks' course. 



Occasionally a student attempts a study he is not prepared 

 for, but he soon adjusts himself to his surroundings. We are 

 trying to educate students along practical lines, and the demand 

 for their services is greater than the supply. The only reason 

 many of them have not entered into dairy work is they can make 



