March, 1912.] 



263 



Miscellaneous. 



Personal power is acquired through 

 discipline, and so the disciplinary value 

 of a course of study is a prime consider- 

 ation. Have we not to some extent lost 

 sight of the great and abiding truth 

 that the intellectual and moral culture 

 of man as a man is the only road to 

 either a social or a vocational uplift ? 

 In our anxiety to demonstrate the value 

 of these institutions to the material 

 interests of the nation, have we not 

 over-commercialized the instruction, 

 even the atmosphere, of our vocational 

 schools and colleges? The leaders in 

 engineering education are beginning to 

 say so, and is it not true of agriculture ? 

 We may well give heed to the words of 

 a recent writer who thus comments on 

 the educational influence of the ancient 

 guilds : 



'« The soul of this ideal education of 

 the masses was the training of character. 

 They had no illusions that the mere 

 imparting of information would make 

 people better, nor that the knowing 

 of many things would make them more 

 desirable citizens. In none of the higher 

 walks of life does it ever cease to be 

 more the question how much of a man 

 one is, than how much he knows of his 

 special business." 



The cultivation of the sense and under- 

 standing of social and moral obligations 

 is placed second because human relations 

 and the quality of human effort are 

 determinative factors in the larger 

 successes and satisfactions of life, 

 whether we consider the individual or 

 the social body. It is sound doctrine to 

 declare that, in the last analysis, the 

 defeats of individuals and of nations are 

 moral defeats. Moreover, we now see 

 very clearly that the critical problems 

 which face agriculture are no less social 

 than vocational. Our greater weakness 

 is not in our bread-winning capacity, 

 but in unsound business ethics and in 

 bad social adjustments. 



And then, there is the larger relation 

 of the educated man to national welfare. 

 It has been said that the cure for the 

 ills of democracy is more democracy. If 

 more democracy is coming, and it seems 

 to be, we shall sorely need the steadying 

 influence of wise social leadership. The 

 education of the masses is superficial. 

 That keen observer, Mr. Bryce, has said 

 that " it is sufficient to enable them to 

 think they know something about the 

 great problems of politics and insufficient 

 to show them how little they know." 

 Bishop Newman declares that " if a 

 practical end must be assigned to a 

 university course I say it is that of 

 training good members of society. It is 

 the art- of social life and its end is fitness 



for the world." Another writer has 

 observed that the land-grant colleges 

 are ranked as an economic rather than a 

 social force. If this accusation is just, 

 these institutions should purge them- 

 selves of an unsound policy. We do 

 violence to the highest interests of the 

 individual and of society if we fail to 

 cultivate in those over whom. the mantle 

 of a baccalaureate degree is thrown a 

 sense and comprehension of their obli- 

 gations to society. 



It is a disorted training that em- 

 phasizes bread-winning capacity at the 

 expense of fitness for social service. Our 

 national welfare is already threatened 

 by the divorcement of patriotic citizen- 

 ship from industrial activity. 



Preparation for vocational activity is 

 placed last, but not because the equip- 

 ment of the mind with the facts of 

 science and their applications to the 

 art of agriculture is in any sense un- 

 important. The colleges of agriculture 

 are dealing directly with the subject 

 matter that is related to the farmer's 

 vocation, and they will violate their ob- 

 ligations and limit their usefulness if 

 they do not continue to do so. 



In discussing the vocational and train- 

 ing value of courses of study in agri- 

 culture, I shall simply be ranging myself 

 on one side of this much-debated ques- 

 tion, when I insist that these courses 

 should present good pedagogical form 

 and should lend themselves largely to 

 training in the fundamental sciences and 

 present the lowest feasible minimum of 

 ultra-practical subjects. 



Remarks concerning pedagogical form 

 may not now be pertinent to any exist- 

 ing situation. It has been said, however, 

 that, in the past, agricultural subjects 

 have been taken out of the normal 

 pedagogical order and placed among 

 the studies of the freshman year, or 

 otherwise distributed illogically in the 

 curriculum, simply that a student's 

 attention shall be held to agriculture 

 and more graduates in agriculture there- 

 by secured. Doubtless such transgres- 

 sions are not commited now, but if they 

 are they look very much like an attempt 

 to lasso young men and drag them at 

 the heels of expediency. What justifi- 

 cation is there for invading the intellec- 

 tual rights of a student or imperiling 

 his future success by giving him less 

 than the best possible training ; and 

 how useless such an expedient. We 

 shall not coerce a man's choice of a life 

 work, however, hard we may try to do 

 so. Young men will continue to enter 

 the door that they believe opens to them 

 the largest opportunity, as they always 

 have done as they ought to do, 



