ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



251 



Like the water that flows to the sea, civilization has proceeded 

 along lines of least resistance. The science of agriculture, dealing as it 

 does with living things, has because of the difficulty of understanding 

 the processes of life, lagged behind those occupations depending for 

 their development upon a knowledge of the physical sciences. The 

 science of agriculture will not reach its highest development until the 

 problem of life has ])een solved. No man dare prophesy the heights 

 which it may yet attain. 



The study of agriculture, therefore presents problems worthy of the 

 most gifted and highly educated young man. A four-years' course in 

 agriculture, or in any of its specialized branches, to day gives a man 

 not only a training for agriculture, but in and by agriculture. It gives 

 him a professional training as to fit him as a bread winner of the high- 

 est type. When he has finished he is fitted to do something somebody 

 wants done. He has not only received a theoretical knowledge of the 

 laws of nature, but such practical knowledge of their application that 

 he can successfully use them on the farm, in the dairy, in the orchard, 

 or in the garden. Not only are the hand and eye trained, but through the 

 hand and the eye the mind is trained. In other words, the course in 

 agriculture offers a sound education. Its graduates are not only edu- 

 cated farmers but educated men. 



I am not ready to assert that the mental drill received from in- 

 struction in technical agriculture, as at present taught, is equal to that 

 received by the study of Greek, Latin, or Calculus. It is freely recog- 

 nized that the colleges of agriculture have large opportunities in this 

 regard. The men who are teaching these subjects have had literally to 

 dig their subject out of the ground and have, in some cases, been so ab- 

 sorbed in acquiring knowledge that they have neglected the pedagogic 

 methods of imparting it. But I am ready to assert that the young men 

 who are now being graduated from the courses in agriculture are, let 

 the reasons be what they may, the peers of the graduates of any of the 

 courses of our land grant colleges and their subsequent work is showing 

 them to be such. 



