MARCH 24 
THE RURAL NIW-YORMIR. 
Cimcational. 
AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES-II. 
W. I. CHAMBERLAIN. 
As Secretary of the Ohio Board of Agrieul 
ture, I am often asked whether I would advise 
a farmer to send his son to our State Univer¬ 
sity (Agricultural College) if he wished him to 
become a farmer. The answer evidently 
must depend not merely on what sciences he 
can learn there, bub on what bent in life he is 
likely to get. Every college has what may be 
called its genius, its traditions and its atmo¬ 
sphere. Some aro towards theology, as of 
Oberliu and Williams; some towards litera¬ 
ture, like Yale and Harvard, and some towards 
science, like Cornell and Johns Hopkins. If I 
wished my son to be a minister and felt sure 
of his determination to be a minister and 
uothing else, I might send him to almost any 
good, Christian college. But if I know him to 
be easily influenced—as what boy is not ?— 
then if I wished him to be a minister, 1 should 
want to send him to Oberlin or Williams (es¬ 
pecially under Pbinuey and Hopkins), for 
there arc* active Christian influences, revivals, 
societies of inquiry, etc., and the traditions 
and the atmosphere are towards the ministry, 
or at least towards the formation of a moral 
and religious character as the basis of a use¬ 
ful life. • 
Now, on the same principle, if we want our 
sons to get ft good education and yet be far¬ 
mers, we must send them where they can learn 
those sciences on which agriculture as a suc¬ 
cessful art must rest, aud where the influences 
are towards, and not away from, agriculture. 
And I think wu have a right to claim that all 
our agricultural colleges shall be of this sort, 
as all admit the one at Lansing. Michigan, is, 
and always lias been. It is largely the doubt 
whether those in other (States are so that has 
discouraged farmers from sending their sons 
to them. At all events they do send them in 
Michigan, and about half of those sent become 
farmers, while this is not the ease in other 
States by a very heavy difference. 
But Professor Caldwell complains that far¬ 
mers have not seen the importance of educa¬ 
tion to fit their sons for farming. The saddest 
thing is that this is largely true. Nor is it 
strange that it is so. The trouble is the idea 
that “any fool can be a fanner,’' that fanners 
next no education, is deep-rooted and of long¬ 
standing. The idea is older than our language 
that country people—farmers—are boors or 
fools, and town people polite and educated. 
Our language is built upon the Greek, the 
Latin aud the Anglo-Saxon, aud the woids in 
all these languages that mean town or city 
have derivatives in English that mean culti- 
rated, while those that mean country have 
derivatives meaning boorish and the like. The 
word boor itself Is from the Anglo-Saxon word 
meaning countryman or farmer. (Compare 
our expression “country jakc.”) The heathens 
w ere those that lived on the heath, or in the 
country: and the pagans lived in outlying 
hamlets. The question. “Can any good thing 
come out of Nazereth <" takes its point from 
the comparison of the hamlet or village Naz¬ 
areth with the great city, Jerusalem. A 
chart (A. S.) was a rustic or countryman, 
Rustic is from "ms," the Latin word for coun¬ 
try, or from “rustieus.” the Latin for country¬ 
man. And the word now when applied to 
persons carries the ideas of lack of culture. 
Urbane is from “ urbs," the Latin for city, 
and means polite. Polite might be sup¬ 
posed to be from “ polites,” the Greek for 
citizen, though it is usually referred to the 
Latin word “polire,” to polish. Civility (po¬ 
liteness) Is from the Latin “civis” a citizen, 
while clown or clownish are from the Latiu 
“colonus,” a tiller of the soil. But courtesy is 
oouduet befitting in a king's court. Many 
other words might be given to illustrate the 
same point. 
All through the Bible, aud the Apocrypha, 
too, is found the idea that labor is incompatible 
with culture. “How knoweth this man letters?” 
"Is not this the carpenter’s son?” In Ecele- 
siasticus xxxviii.: 25, etc., we read: “With 
what w isdom shall he be furnished that hold- 
eth the plow, aud that glorieth in the goad, 
that, driveth oxen, aud is occupied in their la¬ 
bors. and his talk is of cattle? He gtveth his 
mind to the turuiug-up of furrows and his 
care is to give his kiue fodder.” * * * "So 
every craftsman that laboreth night and day” 
—the smith, with the sound of the hammer 
forever in his ears; + * the potter,etc. * * 
“All these shall not go up into the assembly 
(legislature.'). Upon the judge’s seat shall they 
not sit,” etc., etc. “ But they shall strengthen 
the state of the world.” 
Thus the idea is very old (and very signifi¬ 
cant) that agriculture and Oven other physical 
labors ore incompatible with refinement anti 
intelligence and with a voice in the govern¬ 
ment. True, there has in many ages of the 
world been a land-owuing aristocracy of edu¬ 
cated men with servants or serfs or slaves to till 
the soil, but that a man should both oivn and 
till the soil, and should possess or need either 
learning or manners to till it most successfully 
seems not to have been dreamed of as possible 
until quite recently. The priesthood and the 
medical and legal professions and literature 
as a profession, have for ages been assumed tb 
comprise all the learning. Nor has liberal 
learning, college training, been or claimed to 
be of any special advantage to the farmer un¬ 
til recently. And so it is by no means strange 
that when these agricultural colleges were es¬ 
tablished, farmers were not all alive to the im¬ 
portance of such education, or that their sons 
did not flock to them. But this does not prove 
that judicious management of these institu¬ 
tions could not have created this interest aud 
brought out the farmers and educated them 
for fanners, as it did in Michigan. Children 
do not at first long for education. But our 
wisest men know that a republican govern¬ 
ment cannot long exist unless the children of 
the common people are educated; and so the 
Government establishes public schools for the 
children and “compels them to come in." 
Just so, certain far-seeing men in Congress 
well knew that the pennanence of our free in¬ 
stitutions could not be assured except by a 
higher education of the agricultural and in¬ 
dustrial classes in the subject matter of their 
callings; and by act of Congress provision was 
mode to secure this in all the States. Anduu- 
less such education Is secured by our farmers' 
sons so that in the future we may have an in¬ 
telligent farm-owniug class of fanners, the 
farms of our laud will in time be absorbed in¬ 
to large estates, owned by shrewd and w ell- 
educated men, managed by them with every 
appliance of skill and science, w hile the work 
itself shrill ire done by an ignorant and stolid 
peasantry—the owner educated and shrewd, 
the scores of laborers groveling in contented 
ignorance, or rioting in discontent. If that 
day shall ever come our free republican gov¬ 
ernment will have lapsed either into anarchy 
or monarchy. Now I am glad to say that both 
our farmers and the faculties of our agricul¬ 
tural colleges begin to feel this. 
There is evidently a growing desire on 
the part of the management id these col¬ 
leges to do, at last., the work they were 
created to do. And there is a growing desire 
on the part of our farmers to avail themselves 
of t he opportunities there offered; to send their 
sons to receive those benefits; also to have 
them inspired with such a love of farming, of 
w atching and guiding the processes of nature 
that they shall desire to return and use then- 
scientific knowledge in making themselves 
more successful fanners. This desire on the 
part of the farmers should lie encouraged in 
every way by the management of these col¬ 
leges. In Ohio the State University has now 
for four yearn furnished a Winter course of 
lectures on agriculture, at Columbus. There 
are four lectures daily for two weeks. Nearly 
all the professors lecture, and the apparatus of 
the institution is used for illustration. This 
gives a taste of. and a taste for , scientific 
Knowledge, and often results in sending sons 
to the regular course. Then, too, for three 
Winters including the present, the University 
has aided the State Board of Agriculture in 
conducting Farmers’ Institutes in some 30 or 
40 counties of the State each year. These In- 
stitutes continue two days in each locality. 
Usually six or eight lectures are given by 
scientific men, and papers and discussions are 
given and conducted by local talent. Thus 
during each Winter some ten thousand or 
more of the most progressive farmers of the 
State come into personal contact with the 
president or professors, and learn of the work 
done at the universities and of the possibilities 
of work for agriculture if the farmers really 
want that work done for their sons. My own 
belief is that the leaveu is finally working, 
and that, in time a great work will be done for 
agriculture in this institution founded for 
that very purpose. 
But. in order to do this the fanners of our 
land must be awake to their own interests. 
They must send their sons in large mini be re 
and demand that they have given them the best 
possible education to fit them to be successful 
scientific and practical farmers. They must 
not let these munificent endowments slip from 
their grasp through indifference, and these 
State universities become simply ordinary col¬ 
leges. They were endowed to work for the 
elevation of agriculture and the mechanic 
arts. Let the farmers see to it that agricul¬ 
ture is not eliminated or ignored or given a 
subordinate place. 
SHOULD ALL STUDENTS BE COM¬ 
PELLED TO LABOR AT AN AGRI¬ 
CULTURAL COLLEGE? 
PROFESSOR W. J. BEAU 
In the number of the Rural. Nov.. 4. 1SS2, 
you quote part of a student's editorial in 
in our college Speculum and ask me to write 
something in relation to the same subject. 
The article referred to contains much that is 
true, anil will doubtless be hailed with delight 
by some who have always maintained that 
students' labor at college must necessarily lie 
a failure. The article suggested some reme¬ 
dies which were not quoted. 
I cannot satisfactorily explain all the ob¬ 
jections referred to in the article without be¬ 
ing personal. A conversation of a few min¬ 
utes would explain most of the objections in 
a manner satisfactory to any intelligent per¬ 
son. It is believed that a plan will soon Ik* 
inaugurated by which all these objections 
will be satisfactorily answered. The plan 
does not propose to abandon compulsory labor. 
There is no denying the fact that there are 
great difficulties in successfully maintaining 
students’ labor, but it can be done. It has 
oeen well done where classes in agriculture or 
horticulture were very small, not exceeding 
five or eight. For large closes in Michigan, 
we have never had one half enough of trained 
foremen. Our teaching force is inadequate. 
This has been shown more forcibly by our 
plan of requiiiug all students to work at the 
same time during the same days. 
The students are often more anxious to re¬ 
ceive pay for their work than they are to 
work for instruction without pay or at re¬ 
duced rates. A student is almost sure to 
greatly overestimate his own skill. He thinks 
he can do a certain job well and knows all 
about it, when in truth he is much mistaken. 
Our superintendents want work done and have 
money to pay for it. They show as well as 
they can a great number how to perform a 
variety of work in many different places. 
Much of the rough, pioneer work of clearing, 
ditching and otherwise improving the farm 
has now been done. In the horticultural de¬ 
partment especially, and to some extent in the 
farm department, more of other kinds of work 
has often been planned, but some of it 
for several reasons has not been carried into 
effect. The right way lies between a course 
where students work five holms or more daily 
and where no work is performed. 
Our educational labor has not been made as 
prominent as any of us thought it should be. 
It has not been marked and put on record. To 
encourage our students to get good lessons, we 
urge regular attendance on classes, lectures 
and laboratory work. We call on them to recite 
at odd intervals and mark them for their ef¬ 
fort. We frequently examine them by re¬ 
quiring written answers to close questions in 
great variety. These marks for recitations, 
lectures, laboratory work and examinations 
go on record, are seen and discussed by all at 
the college. With the exception of a short pe¬ 
riod, no attempt has here been made to place 
manual labor on an equal footing with recita¬ 
tions or lectures. Students are not stimulated 
to learn how to perform various kinds of work 
by being marked on a scale, as they are for 
class-room work. Remove all class marks and 
all final examinations, and see how soon it 
would detract from the application to study. 
The same rule holds good regardiug labor. To 
be sure, students are now paid wages for work 
performed. This does not go on the same 
record with the studies. Work for wages does 
not necessarily induce a young man to seek 
all kinds of work to secure a high rank. 
I would insist on a good manual training of 
every student of agriculture or horticulture. 
He should be examined with tools iu hand as 
well as in the class-room, and marked for his 
proficiency. This has been tried enough to 
guarantee its success. Such manual work 
aloue would make mere manipulators and not 
uecessarily good thinkers. Class-room work 
alone in agriculture or horticulture is like a 
course in elementary chemistry without ex¬ 
periments, a course in surveying without field 
work, a course in medicine without dissection 
of subjects, a course in botany with the exam¬ 
ination of flowers left out. It is mere book¬ 
learning; it is cramming: it is a study of words 
without knowing their meaning. 
In a college course two or three hours of 
work daily are often objected to because they 
occupy so much valuable time. Students not 
^infrequently ask to be excused from work to 
put more time on their studies. But a long 
experience in this and other colleges in watch¬ 
ing the progress of students who work regu¬ 
larly three houi-s a day aud those who do not. 
enables me to affirm with much confidence 
that the manual labor is not a hindrance to 
intellectual progress. On the contrary, manual 
labor ic a great benefit, in several respects. 
No person can study all the time while he is 
awake. There must be some change, some 
physical exercise. 
In the minds of some, an agricultural col¬ 
lege should teach why to plow and not how to 
plow, why to trim apple trees aud grape-vines 
and not how to trim them. There is time 
enough for the studies aud the work too. The 
one aids the other, the practice wall enforce 
the theory or the indoor instruction and help 
fix it in the minds of pupils. I have taught 
horticulture for the past Top years; I have 
tried several methods and ha ve watched the 
results, and am prepared to say of mere lec¬ 
tures ami book instruction what Huxley says 
of mere book knowledge in natural history. 
"It is a sham and a delusion.” or in the words 
of Agassiz. “It is a poor basis of culture.” 
Without practice in connection with most or 
all of their studies in horticulture, studeuts 
cannot fully understand it. 
[Professor Beal's article will be concluded 
next week. We have still many important 
articles upon this subject of labor at agricul- 
ural colleges which we shall hope to print as 
w r e find space.— Eds.] 
Lord Nelson Apple—Skr Page 1T9—Fig. 14b. 
