ILI^INOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCATION. 77 



education? Then let it materialize. There is no longer to be a 

 distinction between thinkers and workers. We are demand- 

 ing that the thinkers act and that the workers think, and that 

 is right. 



The schools are where the young receive their impres- 

 sions of what the world is going to be like and of what is to 

 be expected of them. More and more they are looked upon 

 as places in which to get ready for the serious business of life. 

 Jeer at the schools as we may and reproach the graduate with 

 the list of self-made men, and that of valedictorians, who have 

 never been heard from, the fact remains that in the highest 

 technical work it is acknowledged that the graduates fresh 

 from the schools are sought fw their up-to-date information 

 and advanced instruction. 



The day is passing when it is seriously asked whether 

 after all a College of Agriculture is a dream, a theory, an 

 illusion, or a fact. Sufficient material for careful and useful 

 instruction along agricultural lines has already been collected 

 and methods of instruction fairly well worked out, although 

 the idea is less than a generation old. I am able to say that 

 I am one of the older graduates of the earlist established Col- 

 lege of Agriculture in America, and this will serve to show 

 how new is this field of education. 



Two prominent facts have developed in recent years in 

 the problem of agricultural education. One is that we are 

 sadly lacking in knowledge of fundamental facts and essential 

 principles, and that experimentation, original research to de- 

 termine precisely where truth lies, must go hand in hand with 

 instruction; that the teacher must be himself a student, and 

 that both teacher and student must be experimenters. 



As the sum of human knowledge increases its need will 

 be increasingly apparent, and its possession will lend a con- 

 tinuously augmented advantage. In the days that are to 

 come the knowledge of the past will not avail. Investigators 

 must be alert to discover, and he who would succeed must 

 be keen to learn. Therefore, should experimentation and in- 

 struction go hand in hand in our schools, and because of 

 rapidly rising standards all men must become learners. 



The second fact that has stood clearly out is that this 

 sort of learning is expensive. It is laborious and costly in 



