4889 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
385 
blood. How to produce such a cross I will 
leave to those agricultural colleges which, 
with no really genuine agricultural depart¬ 
ment, have been trying to represent Hamlet 
with the Prince left out. 
If excellence is to be attained in science or 
art, it must not be looked for from a jack-of- 
all-trades; specialism points to higher attain¬ 
ments, leads the wny and usually gets there. 
If our country were less continental and our 
resources limited, it might be a matter of ex¬ 
pediency to have a general-purpose cow; but 
while we have almost unbounded cattle 
ranges where beef can be produced at a 
minimum cost, and other sections are ex¬ 
cellently adapted to dairy husbandry, itseems 
to me the part of wisdom to make special 
effort by special means to supply the specialty 
the market demands, in the most perfect 
manner and by means of the animals best 
adapted to such purpose. 
Our common cow, sometimos termed a 
scrub, is an example of the all-purpose cow. 
That she is capable of improvement no one will 
gainsay; but inasmuch as we have several 
improved breeds with special adaptabilities, 
to adopt such of these as is best adapted for 
our particular purpose would seem the wiser 
course. 
The little Jersey may not be displaced. 
The attempt to make her a farmer’s all-pur¬ 
pose cow has materially affected her popu¬ 
larity, but she is a nice little pet for those who 
want to keep their own cow. The beef-pur¬ 
pose Snort-horn will surely take its place 
vthen combines are so controlled that farmers 
can afford to improve their fields by fatten¬ 
ing steers, selling more on the hoof and lfss 
by the bushel. The Galloways, the Aberdeen- 
Angus, even the West Highlanders will per¬ 
haps adapt themselves to the rustling life of 
our Western rangos, and will by careful 
breeding or judicious crossing prove worthy 
of the reputation they have already attained; 
while no attempt should be made to divert 
the Holstein-Friesian from her life-work at 
the pail in order that she might die like a hog, 
for of the Holstein-Friesian cow at least, it 
may be claimed “she can’t be wrong whose 
life is in the right.” 
Stelton, N. J. 
(EhtJCiiliomL 
“What are the Aimlral 
PROF. PORTER’S ARTICLE ANSWERED. 
FRIENDS OF THE COLLEGES 
STATE THEIR SIDE 
OF THE CASE. 
FROM DIRECTOR OHAS. E. THORNE. 
I find much in Professor Porter’s article 
“What are the Agricultural Colleges good 
for?” (R. N.-Y., page 348), with which I can 
heartily agree; much with which I cannot 
agree. That the agriculture of our fathers 
was independent of agricultural or other 
colleges is true; for it was but a handicraft, 
aud a rough one at that; but the industrial 
revolution of our generation, of which the 
railway and telegraph and the wonderful im¬ 
provements in machinery of every descrip¬ 
tion are but the material indications—but the 
natural outgrowth of that intellectual regen¬ 
eration which is manifested in the progress of 
scientific knowledge and civil and religious 
liberty—this revolution does not stop at the 
gates of agriculture in its intellectual phases 
any more than in its material manifestations. 
What do the colleges do for surgery and 
medicine, for law, for theology or for en¬ 
gineering? They simply afford convenient 
opportunities for the bringing togethor of 
teacher, student aud illustrative material. 
They make neithor doctors, lawyers, 
preachers nor engineers If the student have 
within him the material out of which one of 
those may be made, theu the college will cul¬ 
tivate aud systeinarizo this material; but after 
the college has done for hun all tout it cau do 
It has only brought him to the gateway of his 
profession. It is only when he passes beyond 
college walls and engagos iu the actual pur¬ 
suit of his profession that he becomes a doctor 
lawyer, preacher or engineer. And how 
often does he fail, after the college has done 
its best for him 1 
The “ folly, implied if not expressly stated 
in the terms of the Morrill Land Grant Act,” 
is precisely the same folly that is implied or 
stated in the terms of every college charter. 
[Professor Porter wrote “ fallacy ’’ in place of 
folly. Eds. R. N.-Y.] When the profes¬ 
sional colleges turn out none but fully 
equipped and successful professional men, 
then, and not till then, shall we have a right 
to demand that the agricultural colleges grad¬ 
uate only fully equipped and successful 
farmers. 
That the so-called agricultural colleges, as a 
class, have most lamentably failed to accom¬ 
plish their legitimate work none will insist 
more strenuously than I. It is true that “ as 
at present managed, their influence is to take 
young men away from the farm.” But this 
is true only of the class, and not of all the in¬ 
dividuals. There are agricultural colleges 
whose managers have had the breadth of 
vision to see the opportunity that lay before 
them, and who have built up institutions 
wherein the spirit of agriculture prevails, and 
whence young men and women are going back 
to the farm with every faculty cultivated in 
sympathy with the life of the farm and trained 
to make tho most of that life. These colleges 
do not make farmers; but give them the ma¬ 
terial out of which a farmer may be made, 
and they will not pervert that material into 
the making of a second-rate lawyer, doctor or 
preacher. 
The trouble with our agricultural colleges 
lies here : 
1. Their managers are generally men who 
have no active sympathy with the life of the 
farm; who were educated in the traditions of 
the “ classical ” schools, ana who have not the 
wisdom to see that such "education is now 
tural Colleges good for?” which is a question 
of great interest to many of us. If he had 
drawn more largely on facts and less on his 
imagination, the article would have contained 
fewer objectionable points. 
Here are a few thoughts called out by read¬ 
ing bis article, with no attempt to notice 
much that it contains. 
He proves (?) that a man will be no more 
successful as a farmer by having a knowledge 
of veterinary surgery, agricultural chemistry, 
entomology and botany. Much depends on 
who teaches the above subjects, how they are 
taught and what parts are made prominent. 
He says farmers can get needed informa¬ 
tion from reports of experiment stations and 
agricultural papers, not understanding that 
it is possible for stations and papers to be of 
much real value to the farmer only if we 
have well-educated men to manage them. 
The agricultural colleges have done more to 
raise the stauding of agriculture and agricul¬ 
tural papers than most people are aware of, 
and they have made it possible to establish 
and maintain the experiment stations. 
The agricultural colleges, the experiment 
stations and the agricultural papers consti¬ 
tute a natural alliance, each aiding the others. 
The author admits that the studies referred 
to tend to make a person “a good deal more of 
a man.” The leading thought of our best agri¬ 
cultural teachers is to make bettor aud broad¬ 
er men while they are also training them for 
the farm In fact, the man is of more im¬ 
portance than the farm, and we cannot count 
a man as a successful farmer unless he is a 
success as a man. 
The author plans,'in a general way, a course 
of study, makiug the sweeping assertion that 
agricultural colleges take young men away 
from the farm. In several notable cases this 
last statement has again and again been 
shown to be untrue. 
He refers to tho 300 graduates «f Massachu¬ 
setts Agricultural College, I take the follow¬ 
ing from Agricultural Science for April, 1889: 
The editor is a graduate of that college. 
“Of the graduates of the college, 40 are 
farmers, six fruit growers and market gar¬ 
deners,eight florists and landscape gardeners, 
four planters, nine poultry and stock raisers, 
seven veterinarians, two editors of agricul¬ 
tural papers, four fertilizer manufacturers, 
nine chemists to fertilizer companies and 28 
engaged in agricultural colleges or experi¬ 
ment stations. There are 150 other graduates 
engaged in various occupations.” The above 
is a fine showing for any agricultural college. 
Professor Porter would turn the agricultu¬ 
ral college into an academy, where instruc¬ 
tion should be imparted only in winter. He 
greatly underestimates the cost of this method, 
whon he states that for four to six months the 
cost would be not more than a quarter as 
much as it would be if the usual method were 
followed. 
Our experience is like that in many other 
States, that poor boys can best support them¬ 
selves while attending an agricultural col¬ 
lege, by having the long vacation come iu 
winter when the student can make more 
money in four months by teaching school 
than he could in six months by working on 
the farm By taking a course of the collage 
during summer, he ha9 practice in many kinds 
of work requiring skill. Without a course 
followed by examinations and credits, exper¬ 
ience would show that most boys would pre¬ 
fer base ball and other sports to taking ncte3 
of farm operations according to the plan of 
Professor Porter. Actual practice would 
show that very little could bs done by one 
lecture a day, after dinner or before supper. 
Fortuuately for our great nation with its 
varied interests, we are still trying many ex¬ 
periments in the way of teaching agriculture. 
By short courses, by those of four years, by 
summer courses,by winter courses.by establisb- 
obsolete, so far as the training of.inou for mod¬ 
ern life is concerned. These men have already 
been generally successful m turning “ the ag¬ 
ricultural colleges into schools of general cul¬ 
ture, assimilating their courses of study 
largely to the courses in regular colleges." 
2. The farmers, realizing that tho old schol¬ 
astic education was not adapted to their neces¬ 
sities, and seeing in the new education simply 
an old acquaintance under a new garb, have 
largely refused to patronize tho colleges; 
whereas they should, by power of numbers 
and combination, havo compelled a regenera¬ 
tion of these colleges iu fact as well as iu name. 
Get the agricultural colleges out of the ruts 
of scholasticism, man them with men awake 
to aud in harmony with the demands of tho 
age, and we shall soon cease to hear of their 
failure. 
Columbus, Ohio. 
FROM DR. W. J. REAL. 
I have read a long article in a recent num¬ 
ber of the Rural, by Professor D. G. Porter, 
under the caption, “What are the Agricul¬ 
sotts Agricultural Collego, where less than 
one-quarter have devoted themselves to agri¬ 
culture in any of its branches. Let him 
count up a like number (as others have done) 
who graduate in other colleges or who take 
anything near a full course in academy or 
high school, and he will see that even the pro¬ 
portion of one-fourth of tho graduates as 
farmers, in a manufacturing State like Mas¬ 
sachusetts, is a fine showing for a young in¬ 
stitution. If this be not enough,let him couut 
up 300 graduates, taking all iu certain 
classes, from schools of law and medicine,and 
see if he can make as good a showing for 
these professional schools. 
“Now it is a fair presumption that most of 
tho young men intend to become farmers; 
else why should they go to an agricultural 
college ?” An experien ce of nearly 20 years in 
an agricultural college situated in an agricul¬ 
tural country, has shown that students are in¬ 
duced to drift into an agricultural college for 
a large uumber of reasons, as they drift into 
other schools or colleges. 
In regard to the graduates of the Massachu 
ing colleges in connection with universities, 
aud by others not so connected, by requiring 
manual labor and by not requiring it, by in¬ 
troducing into a course a pretty liberal uum¬ 
ber of studies like rhetoric, pure mathemat¬ 
ics, logic and moral philosophy, and by other 
courses in which those and kindred studies 
receive very little attention; in due time the 
problem will be solved. 
There is one point the author has not taken 
into consideration, the fact that roost of our 
graduates have little or no money when their 
course is finished. To become a farmer re¬ 
quires capital. Such men usually believe 
they can engage for a time in surveying, 
teaching or something else and get money 
more rapidly than by hiring out to work as a 
day laborer, or by going to a very new coun¬ 
try v here laud is cheap. Many not now 
numbered among the farmers, still hope some 
day to be able to purchase and mauage a 
farm. 
Michigau Agricultural College. 
FROM PROF. J. L. BUDD, 
Prof. Porter’s paper on page 348 of the 
