76 PROCEEDINGS OF THIRTY-THIRD FRUIT-GROWERS ' CONVENTION. 



upon the farm should go through so much preliminary training in order 

 to study agriculture in college, and you reason that it should be possible 

 to receive instruction in agriculture in the lower schools. I agree with 

 you most heartily, and will say further that the vast majority of farmers 

 who, in the future, shall have had an opportunity to study their life 

 work in the schools and colleges will have done so in institutions of 

 high school grade; and if by the establishment of such schools we shall 

 not have been able to lead more pupils from the grammar to the second- 

 ary schools, the majority even will have received their agricultural 

 instruction in the grammar schools. Assistant Secretary of Agri- 

 culture, W. M. Hays, said in an address last January before the Penn- 

 sylvania State Board of Agriculture: " The assumption is now proved 

 erroneous that the farmer should be afforded as long a course of college 

 study as persons preparing for the technical professions." 



When the college of agriculture was established by the Morrill Act of 

 1862 it stood as near to the people as it was possible to stand. Its 

 course of study could not have been of so high a grade as now, because 

 there was not the recognized standard of preparatory schools as now. 

 Students could enter with almost any kind of preparation — at least, no 

 more than we now ask for the high school. With the growth of the 

 .college and the university, of which it is an integral part, came more 

 vigorous standards. The college of agriculture could not, without 

 humiliation and disgrace, admit students to regular university standing 

 without demanding an equivalent preparation. Nor could its graduate 

 receive the university diploma except his four-year course had given 

 him an equal training with the graduate in mechanics, chemistry, or 

 letters. If he wanted to teach, or enter experiment station work or 

 commercial employ, the vigorous college training was none too high 

 for him. 



Thus has the college of agriculture seemingly grown away from the 

 farmer, but in reality it has not. There has entered between the com- 

 mon school and the college, the high school as an intermediate institution 

 whose chief object is to prepare for college and the university. Is not 

 this the school the farmer has allowed to get away from him? The 

 college of agriculture has been following the line that was necessary to 

 preserve its dignity and greatest usefulness, as will be shown in later 

 years, because it has the entire State to serve for both instruction and 

 experimentation. Some of us have been stewing about the college while 

 we have been blind to our local schools, and have let them get as far away 

 from our agriculture as the two poles are from each other. You need 

 to lasso that school in your community and tie it to your agriculture. 

 The larger cities in our State found their high schools getting away from 

 the common people, but instead of lassoing them they started new ones 

 and named them polytechnic high schools. Now, the boy can learn 

 carpentry, iron work, electricity, etc, along with his language and 



