246 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



many of the circumstances surrounding a law practice, but that Is not 

 sufficient reason for others to avoid it and every one must recognize that 

 the practice of law offers to an ambitious, educated, high minded young^ 

 man an opportunity for a worthy career. 



When these institutions first offered themselves to the public as 

 agricultural colleges, a few men in their faculties did a little teaching 

 for agriculture, still less teaching in agriculture, and generally no 

 teaching at all by agriculture. This is not strange. The few noble 

 spirits, who kept alive the fires that burned so feebly during the first 

 twenty-six years and who essayed to teach the application of the 

 sciences to agriculture, had not had, except in rare instances, any train- 

 ing in the sciences which they sought to apply, and, except in rare in- 

 stances again did the men who taught the sciences preceive their rela- 

 tion to agriculture and some times cared less. 



Some exceptions, however, are worthy of note. The first experi- 

 ment stations, established through the zeal and self sacrifice of a small 

 group of men, were the means of instructing and inspiring a few young^ 

 men, who have become the leaders of scientific thought as it relates to 

 agriculture. These men may not have all been thoroughly practical 

 men, but they were deeply trained in the sciences relating to agriculture. 

 On the other hand, there were few of our colleges that had the good 

 fortune to secure as their so-called professor of agriculture, men of un- 

 usual vigor of mind, enthusiasm for the cause, and withal a wide icnowl- 

 edge of agriculture. In these institutions a few young men have been 

 trained, which, meeting with their more scientifically but less practi- 

 cally trained brethren, have together helped to control the destiny of 

 this cause during the past twenty years. 



It was not, however, until ten years ago, which happens to be co- 

 incidental with the passage of the second Morril Act, that the teachers 

 of what may be called technical agriculture were at all generally men 

 who had been trained in the sciences underlying agriculture. These 

 men, be it observed, had received their training in technical agriculture 

 from the men who had, themselves, for the most part, had no scientific 



