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mores, freshmen, specials, all together in the same class. You may protest 
against that, but bear In mind these boys are studying Shorthorn cattle or some 
other technical subject. The special student has a herd of Shorthorn cattle 
at home, perhaps, and he is as able to study Shorthorns as the senior, and 
sometimes better. They can meet on a common ground in the class room. 
Give them a chance at election ; do not drive them into something they know- 
nothing about. If a student comes to us at 18 years of age and is deficient in 
English, i. e., has less than 42 credits, or three and one-half years of high 
school work, he must go to the preparatory school and take English. He 
may choose his other subjects. If he is 16* years old he must spend half his 
time in the preparatory school, and the other half may be given to other sub- 
jects, allowing him to elect any subjects he is able to carry. The fact is we 
have very few students under 18. Most of our students are 18 or over. A 
great many of them are between 18 and 21. At about 17 or 18 or 19 boys 
begin to think they are too old to go to high school, and if you do not let them 
into the college you will never get them. If the boy is 18 years old we shut 
our eyes to all deficiencies except English. 
He can graduate here without mathematics, but he must take two years of 
foreign language, because the foreign language, we think, is nearer to agri- 
culture than is mathematics. If we had a department of agricultural eco- 
nomics — which we hope to have — the student in that coarse would be required 
to have mathematics, or if he elects subjects requiring mathematics he must 
take mathematics now. 
A. Scott, of New Jersey. I sincerely hope that it will not go down on the 
records that the assumption that Professor Davenport has made is generally true. 
That all our institutions are like his in all particulars, excellent and otherwise, 
will not be accepted as the consensus of this body, because I am quite sure that 
some things he has said of his institution are not true of mine. We require of 
every boy who comes to college that he shall know algebra, plane geometry, and 
solid geometry at least, and must pass examination in these subjects. I should 
not like to have it said that three-fourths of those who go to our college are not 
graduated, for it is not true. More than half are graduated, although many fall 
by the way for one reason or another. This is a local issue. It is becoming more 
and more apparent every year that we must recognize that differences of condi- 
tions that are fundamental have to be taken into account. These are schools 
of agriculture, and. as my friend from Arizona has said, of mechanic arts. They 
were founded for training in the sciences applied to industrial pursuits, for the 
poor boy of the city as well as for the poor boy of the farm. We recognize in 
New Jersey the importance of agriculture. It is second to none, but there are 
others that should stand on a parity with it. We have laid great stress on agri- 
culture. In New Jersey, for example, there is a vast field for the civil engineer 
and the mechanical engineer, and we must make adequate provision for instruc- 
tion in these and similar lines. 
This is, moreover, a matter of mental training rather than of special subjects. 
What we want of the boy is power, not special training. 
W. O. Thompson. To recur to the original paper that brought out this dis- 
cussion, the question first was the legal right to teach the elements of this sub- 
ject. I hope the paper made it clear that the elementary teaching was not 
confined to schools below the college, but that in our colleges there was elemen- 
tary instruction in many subjects, and that the definition in the statute or else- 
where could not limit the instruction, if it insisted on subjects rather than 
method. I think we also realize from the discussion that we are confronted 
with a condition to which these colleges must address themselves. There has 
been agreement that we are all trying to meet that condition, and there has been 
