Ctotfalixmal. 
“WHAT ARE THE AGRICULTURAL 
COLLEGES GOOD FOR?” 
PRESIDENT W. I. CHAMBERLAIN. 
Thanks for the Rural’s invitation to re¬ 
ply to Professor D. G. Porter’s recent article 
on the above subject. It needs a reply, and yet 
the task is difficult. Two columns ot general, 
scattering criticisms cannot be met briefly. 
1 do not know Professor Porter or what 
place he fills, but he seems to me to write with¬ 
out sufficient knowledge or recognition of 
actual facts, and of the great difficulty to be 
overcome. 
FIRST, ACTUAL FACTS. 
In his headings we read “ strong tendency 
to divert trom farming promising young 
men who would otherwise bo farmers.” But 
this tendency lies in the college idea, and not 
in the agricultural-college idea. In the old- 
time colleges, up to the time the agricultural 
colleges were opened, about one-half of the 
graduates came from the farms, and less than 
one fiftieth ever returned to the farms. The 
Massachusetts Agricultural College, quoted by 
Professor Porter, has by his own figures done 
twelve times as well, and the Michigan Agri¬ 
cultural College has done twice as well as that, 
sending about half of its graduates and over 
half of its undergraduates into agricultuai 
and horticultural work of some sort. The 
tendency or fault lies in the name, college, 
and in its traditiojis. Some of our agricul¬ 
tural colleges have fought manfully to turn 
the tide and change the tendency, and should 
have unstinted praise—not blame—for this 
good work. Others have yielded to the old 
college idea and don« little for agriculture. 
They have done exactly as Professor Porter 
recommends in answer to his owu question; 
“ What then ought we to do ?” 
“First: Turn the agricultural colleges into 
schools of general culture, assimilating their 
courses of study largely to the academical 
courses in regular colleges. If you cannot 
learn agriculture at a college, there are other 
things you can learn which will be even more 
important.” 
They are the colleges that have done little 
for agriculture. They are the ones that joined 
the land grant to an existing college or uni¬ 
versity as a tail to a kite. They are the ones 
that agree with Professor Porter that “it is an 
easy inference and an easy mistake to sup¬ 
pose, because a law school is good to make 
lawyers, and a medical school is good to make 
doctors, that an agricultural school must be 
good to make farmers. And it is doubtless 
true that some of our agricultural colleges 
were founded upon this ‘folly,’ implied if not 
expressly stated in the terms of the Morrill 
Land Grant Act. ’ 
But those colleges that think as Professor 
Porter does on this point are not the ones that, 
in the opinion of farmers, have done most tor 
agriculture. Does Professor Porter realize 
just what his words mean ? They seem to me 
to mean a diversion of trust funds from their 
true intent. Each State legislature was by 
the Morrill Land Grant Act made a trustee. 
It could refuse the trust as founded upon a 
“folly”, but it could not righteously accept 
the trust and divert the funds to other uses 
on the ground that the grantor was guilty of 
a “folly” in specifying what should be done 
with those funds. Suppose a case: A wills a 
million dollars to found a Presbyterian Theo¬ 
logical Seminary, names B as sole trustee, 
and dies. Now B may refuse the trust as a 
“folly” but he may not accept the trust, pro¬ 
nounce it “folly” and divert the funds from 
A’s expressed or even “implied” intent. He 
may not accept the trust and then say “‘Chris¬ 
tianity is a delusion. Miracles do not happen. 
Hume and Robert Elsmere have settled that. 
I will turn this seminary into a school of gen¬ 
eral scientific culture, assimilating the course 
of study largely to the courses iu our schools 
of technology. Since Christianity is defunct, 
and students cannot learn theology at the 
seminary there are other things they can 
learn which will be even more important.” 
No, B may not do this; yet this is very near¬ 
ly what Professor Porter seems to propose, a 
diversion of funds from the admitted intent 
of the grautor. “If you cannot learn agricul¬ 
ture at u college, there are other things 
you can learn which will be eveu more im¬ 
portant,” But agriculture was one of tho 
things specified in the grant. It may not be 
suppressed by tho trustee. 
Again; Professor Porter seems to me to 
write without sullicieut knowledge or recog¬ 
nition of facts iu assuming that agriculture 
is the only thing required by the Morrill La w to 
be taught in these collegos. “ Mechanic Arts 
and Military Tactics” wore by that law placed 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
on the same footing with “Agriculture.” This 
fallacy is quite general and grows in part out 
of the name “agricultural coileges.” This name 
was assumod for convenience. The entire 
name was too long and cumbersome—“ Agri¬ 
cultural, Mechanical and Military College.” 
“ Industrial College,” though short, would not 
do, for the term “industrial” had'been de¬ 
graded aid cursed by being applied to penal 
institutions, “ work-schools ” or “ reform 
schools ” for depraved or criminal youths; as 
if industry were fit only for the criminal 
classes; as if useful trades and industries 
should be taught only as a punishment for 
crime—in reformatories and penitentiaries! 
Ami so, for convenience, these new colleges 
were chiefly called “agricultural,” omitting 
two-thirds of their title. And the assumption 
has been that unless all their students became 
farmers the colleges were recreant to the trust. 
Indeed the Michigan Agricultural College, 
the oldest and one of the best, that did a 
noble work under a grand man as Fresident, 
(T. C. Abbott), aided by grand men, as Pro¬ 
fessors, (Kedzie and Beal and Miles and Fair- 
child and Cook and others),nevertheless at first 
yielding to its name and to the idea that it was 
better to do a part well than the whole less 
thoroughly, that noble college, I say, for the 
first 20 years made itself almost wholly agri¬ 
cultural and did little for the “mechanic 
arts” or “ military tactics.” Now, however, 
it is enlarging its work, more in the full spirit 
of the Morrill Law. 
But even the cumbersome name, “Agricul¬ 
tural, Mechanical and Military College,” 
would fail to give the true idea of the Morrill 
Land Grant Law. It suggests too much of 
the apprenticeship and trade idea,—of simply 
learning to hoe and harrow, to mold and cast, 
to hammer and forge, to plane and turn,— 
and too little of the knowledge of underlying 
sciences and principles. But the law itself 
makes prominent the latter idea without 
neglecting the former. It says explicitly: 
“The leading object shall bo, without exclud 
ing other scientific and classical studies, and 
including military tactics, to teach such 
branches of learning as are related to agri¬ 
culture and the mechanic arts in order to 
promote the liberal and practical education 
of the industrial classes in the several pur¬ 
suits and professions of life.” (The italics aie 
mine.) The old-time colleges had educated 
chiefly for law, medicine, theology and litera¬ 
ture. The “ leading object ” of the new Land 
Grant Colleges was to educate “ the industrial 
classes” for “agriculture and the mechanic 
arts;” that is, for the various industries as 
distinguished from the learned professions; 
—for the callings that use hand and brain as 
distinguished from those who use the brain 
alone, or almost alone. This seems to me to 
be a fair interpretation. It was the interpre¬ 
tation put upon the law by my predecessors 
in the presidency of the Iowa State “Agricul¬ 
tural ” College. The results of this idea hon¬ 
estly carried out maj be shown from the sta¬ 
tistics of the college or of any class. For 
convenience I quote from page 7 of my own 
report as president, printed in the “Twelfth 
Biennial Report of our Trustees, made to the 
Governor of Iowa,” December, 18S7. 
“The class that graduated tliisyear.Novem- 
ber 9, 1887, numbers 43 members, including 
two gentlemen who took certificates for spec¬ 
ial work nearly equivalent to the full course, 
and two who took the second degree. Four 
were ladies. The industrial character of the 
course of study, and of the atmosphere of the 
College, can be seen by the occupations in life 
already chosen by the members of this gradu¬ 
ating class, as follows: 
Veterinary medicine. 12 
Agriculture, horticulture and stock breed¬ 
ing . 9 
Civil engineering. 6 
Mechanical engineering. 3 
Practical chemistry. 2 
Pharmacy . 1 
Dental science and practice . 1 
General business management. 1 
Total in strictly agricultural and 
industrial callings.35 
Not decided. 1 
Law. 3 
Teaching (temporarily). 3 
Medicine. 1 
Total in professional callings . 7 
It has been the custom of certain agricul¬ 
tural writers to name the Agricultural Col¬ 
leges of Michigan, Kansas, Massachusetts and 
Mississippi as the only ones that have held 
faithfully to the agricultural and industrial 
idea of the Congressional law that gave them 
their endowments and prescribed the charac¬ 
ter of the work to be done. Clearly, from 
the above showing, such writers should en¬ 
large the list so as to include the Iowa State 
College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts.” 
I might add that all our gentlemen students 
not actually disabled physically, and most of 
the ladies, have two years' instruction in 
tootios with military drill from % to five 
hours per week; also that any who doubt 
the industrial character of the callings classed 
as such above, may perhaps glance over the 
list with me. 
Veterinary Medicine.— Well, about 90 
per cent, of our annual agricultural income, 
and at least 50 per cent.of our total annual in¬ 
come in Iowa, comes from live stock. How 
can an agricultural college bettor promote 
the interests of agriculture than by thorough¬ 
ly educating veterinary physicians and sur¬ 
geons to take the place of quacks and save the 
lives and health of our live domestic animals. 
The practice is largely surgical. Hand and 
brain are used. It is industrial. The skilled 
fingers of one of our senior “vets” tied the 
artery of a valuable horse for me, severed by 
barbed wire. He would have bled to death in 
15 minutes, if helped only by my clumsy 
fingers not trained with my mind in a classi-' 
cal college. The next item needs no remark. 
The two added make 21 in the direction of ag¬ 
riculture, for some of the “ vets ” went on to 
stock farms and not into general practice. 
Civil Engineering.—Is not this indus¬ 
trial? Who build our railways, lay our 
curves, build our bridges to make life safe? 
Who span Niagara, and the East river at 
New York and lay the foundations for the in¬ 
dustries and the commerce of the world? 
Mechanical Engineering.— This is one 
of the “mechanic arts.” What has more 
blessed the world than the spur given to in¬ 
vention by study of the underlying sciences 
grasped in the general term “mechanical en¬ 
gineering. “ Is not this college worthy of 
praise rather than of blame for the fact that 
it turns 35 graduates in a single year into ag¬ 
riculture and the industries and only seven 
into the old professions, including teaching? 
Is not that a grand work for “Agriculture 
and the Mechanic Arts?” 
Again, Professor Porter seems not to know 
or recognize facts when he says: “Now it is a 
fair presumption that most of the young men 
intended to become farmers, else why should 
they go to an agricultural college? And the 
college instead of helping to make them farm¬ 
ers actually took them away from the farm 
and sent them into other pursuits.” No, they 
do not all or most of them come intending to 
become farmers. Fully half or more come 
headed towards other industrial pursuits. 
They come in Iowa because they want a col¬ 
legiate education, and because of the great 
advantages offered at this college. The en¬ 
dowment is munificent, larger than that of all 
the other colleges in the State.yielding $60,000 
per year. The equipment and apparatus are 
excellent. The instruction in the sciences 
that underlie agriculture and all the indus¬ 
trial arts is unsurpassed in the West. Tuition 
is free, room rent nominal, board at cost and 
boarding hall and furniture rent free. Then, 
too, the home influence is away from the 
farm. Sons of wealthy farmers often come 
here to get a scientific or literary education 
expressly in order that they may not be farm¬ 
ers. I have several in mind. One whose father 
owned 1,000 acres of excellent land wanted 
to take a special literary course, skimming 
wbat language and literature he could in one 
year from our whole course, to go elsewhere 
then and study law. I did not admit him,and 
he went elsewhere on the same errand. An¬ 
other boy from a 6,000-acre farm staid here 
one year and then went to a classical college ! 
Even Professor Porter admits this adverse 
home influence, even though he charges the 
chief fault upon the colleges. He says: 
“There is indeed one view in which the ag¬ 
ricultural colleges are positively detrimental 
to agriculture. As at present managed, their 
influence is to take young men away from the 
farm,who would otherwise have been farmers. 
Take a boy from his father’s house and farm 
at the period when bis habits and tastes are 
most rapidly forming; dress him up like a 
gentleman and send him to college to mingle 
for three or four years with other boys simi¬ 
larly treated; even in vacation when he comes 
home as a visitor, coddle him with the notion 
that he has been studying so hard that he 
needs all the time for rest aud recreation—for 
that is what vacations are for—and what have 
you done to make a tarmer of him even if he 
has been spending these three or four years iu 
this gentlemanly way at a so-called agricul¬ 
tural college? Not much surely. But you 
have done a good deal to Rive him a disposi¬ 
tion to keep up his gentlemanly habits, and to 
keep away from the farm forever.” 
Here the home influence is most at fault, 
not the college, especially if the boy be taught, 
as Professor Porter teaches elsewhere iu this 
very article, that “ apprenticeship aud special 
training are indispensable in other vocations 
but unnecessary in farming;" that “ scientists 
aud specialists confer benefits on agriculture 
but might make unsuccessful farmers;” that 
“agricultural papers and reports of agricul¬ 
tural experiment Stations tell farmers all they 
433 
need to know about theoretical ana scientific 
matters appertaining to agriculture;” that 
the drill in sciences closely related to agricul¬ 
ture is not so valuable even for the farmer 
“ is in no wise comparable to the usual aca¬ 
demical course in other colleges.” These are 
the home influences and this the kind of talk 
that turn the boys away from the farms, and 
against which the agricultural colleges must 
struggle, rowing as it were up stream and 
against wind and tide. 
With no discourtesy to Professor Porter, 
I must be permitted to say that I think such 
teaching as his does incalculable harm,and that 
it seems to me agricultural heterodoxy to say 
that Greek, Latin, Rhetoric and Astronomy 
are incomparably better drill and foundation 
for the farmer's life work than Geology, 
Chemistry, Botany. Physiology, Zoology, 
Principles of Breeding and the like. 
1 wish to add, too, without discourtesy, 
that it seems to me well-nigh presumption for 
any individual to stamp as “folly” the vital 
idea of the Land Grant Law on which Senator 
Morrill and his distinguished co-’aborers spent 
so many years of patient study, and which 
the Old World had been at work on almost a 
century. President Buchanan vetoed a sim¬ 
ilar bill with the same weak fatuity that let 
the South secede. The Congress that revised 
and passed the bill again was the Congress 
that restored the Union, ana as grand a body 
of men as ever sat in council; and Lincoln 
signed the bill with the same hand and heart 
and head that wrote and signed the Emanci¬ 
pation Proclamation! These men had studied 
well and long the agricultural and techno, 
logical schools of Europe. They’ saw the 
former helping to stop the world’s long wail of 
lost fertility of soil, and desired to bring in 
that same knowledge before our fertile fields 
were wasted and the same wail was begun 
here too. They saw the European technolog¬ 
ical schools sending us engineers and skilled 
mechanics, and artisans of skill, and artists, 
and inventors, because our colleges were still 
pursuing “ the usual academic (classical) 
course,” and they determined that we would 
train such men here and not import them 
longer. This was their “ folly;” and grandly 
have the results justified the wisdom of it. 
The Colleges of Agriculture and Mechanic 
Arts have done a noble work in spite of the 
encroachments of the old college and univer¬ 
sity idea, which they were founded to correct 
and supplement. They have driven the old 
colleges into science with the laboratory 
methods more than the latter have drawn 
them into classics and literature. Latin and 
Greek are sickly, exotic plants even in those 
Land Grant colleges that are most impressed 
with the university idea. 
Another article will notice some of the real 
difficulties which 1 do not think Professor 
Porter fully appreciates, and will also con¬ 
sider the wisdom of the remedies proposed by 
him. 
Iowa Agricultural College, Ames, Iowa. 
P. S.—I notice by last week’s Rural, re¬ 
ceived since the above was written, that 
Professor Porter claims to have used the word 
“ fallacy ” instead of “ folly” of the Morrill 
Act. Well the “fallacy,”stated as a syllogism, 
is as follows: 
Major premise: All callings based on 
knowledge of scientific principles and on 
practice in detail are more successfully 
followed with such knowledge and practice 
than without. Minor premise: Agriculture 
is such a calling. Conclusion: Therefore agri¬ 
culture, etc. Now. which premise does Pro¬ 
fessor Porter deny ? 
Woman’s Work. 
CONDUCTED BY EMILY LOUISE TAPLIN. 
CHAT BY THE WAY. 
T HERE is frying and frying. One old 
housekeeper declares that the reason 
why this mode of cooking is regarded with so 
much contempt is because so few women 
know how to fry. They usually set the pan 
on the stove, throw in some fat, and while it 
melts put into the greasy mess whatever they 
wish to cook. Then it is allowed to frizzle 
until it is done—and a barbarous mode of 
cooking this is. Properly, if such meat as 
steaks or chops should be cooked in the fry¬ 
ing pau, that utensil should first be heated un¬ 
til it is thoroughly hot; then it should be 
rubbed over with fat just to keep the meat 
from sticking. When this is done, the outer 
surface of the meat becomes hardened at once, 
so that there is no escape of juice, nor is there 
any possibility of its becoming soggy or soak¬ 
ed with fat. This mode of cooking isjsome- 
tjmes called a “Philadelphia broil,” 
