4880 
THE BUBAL MIW=Y©BJCEB. 
484 
dutcotionai. 
THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES. 
PROFESSOR PORTER’S REPLY. 
I ought to feel flattered by the abundant 
attention which has been given to my article 
published a few weeks since and, doubtless in 
common with other readers of the Rural, I 
have been much interested in the communica 
tions of the eminent gentlemen who are con¬ 
nected with the agricultural colleges. 
Director Thorne, of the Ohio Agricultural 
College, believes that the intellectual progress 
of the age should not stop at the gates of agri¬ 
culture. I agree with the sentiment fully. 
Indeed I go further, and believe not only in 
intellect for agriculture, but more especially 
in intellect for agriculturists, since the latter 
implies the former and much more besides. It 
is true that colleges do not make lawyers and 
doctors, but there is more need of “bringing 
together student and teacher and illustrative 
material” in a college class-room in the case 
' of these than in the case of young men who 
desire to become farmers. To suppose that 
there is not, would be a “ fallacy.” It may be 
a fallacy to suppose that a college can do much 
to make a farmer anyway. When the gradu¬ 
ates of the agricultural colleges are seen to 
beat other farmers in the same field and under 
the same circumstances, and to do this uni¬ 
formly and unmistakably, there will be no 
need to vindicate or defend these colleges. 
But when, instead, some of the graduates 
withdraw from the field altogether, and 
others fail to distinguish themselves in 
a manner commensurate with the ad¬ 
vantages they are supposed to have en¬ 
joyed, then, surely, some explanation 
is in order. Director Tborno admits that the 
agricultural colleges, with some exceptions, 
“have most lamentably failed to do their le¬ 
gitimate work.” I did not think of making so 
sweeping and serious an accusation as this. 
But perhaps here my lack of experience Is at 
fault; for I must admit that I have never 
made an actual investigation into the prac¬ 
tical working of these colleges I have simply 
examined the reports of managers and the 
courses of study as published in the cat¬ 
alogues, to get what they were trying to do; 
and giving them the credit of success thus far, 
I have made my criticisms entirely on a 
priori grounds, not being able to see that it 
would amount to much in the direction of 
practical aariculture if they succeeded in 
doing all they were attempting to do. 
Director Thorne seems to think the man¬ 
agers of the agricultural colleges are men of 
too much general culture and teach too much 
besides farming and connected sciences. He 
would get the colleges out of what he terms 
‘ the ruts of scholasticism,” believing that 
farmers and farmers’ sons are not to be 
caught by the chaff of classical learning. He 
here raises the old question between different 
courses ot study, upon the discussion of which 
it is not necessary to enter here. But his po¬ 
sition seems to involve the possible “fallacy” 
of supposing that you can teach or learn in a 
college much that has a direct bearing on prac¬ 
tical agriculture which you cannot learn bet¬ 
ter and more easily in another way. This 
fallacy will not become a “folly” unless it is 
persisted in against reason aud experience. 
Dr. Beal, of the Michigan Agricultural Col¬ 
lege, says the leading thought of our best 
agricultural teachers is to make better and 
broader men while also training them for the 
farm; and he finely remarks that the man is 
more important than the farm, and that we 
cannot count a man as a successful farmer 
unless he is a success as a man, with allot 
which I heartily agree. In fact, I find my¬ 
self at difference with Dr. Beal only on two 
points: first, on the question whether the 
agricultural colleges, as at present conducted, 
have a tendency to take boys away from the 
farm, and then in reference to the proposed 
winter education of farmers’ boys. Now, 
without baviug any statistics at hand from 
which to form an estimate, and judging sim¬ 
ply from my own observation, I am decidedly 
of the opinion that more than one-quarter, or 
even than one-half of the young men who 
study law become lawyers, and I might say 
the same of those who study medicine or en¬ 
gineering. 
In reference to the second point of differ¬ 
ence, Dr Beal apparently mistakes my prop¬ 
osition, perhaps owing to a slight, but unfor¬ 
tunate typographical error. I would not 
turn the agricultural colleges into’academies, 
but would have them colleges still,.and keep 
them at least up to their, present grade. I 
would have a college course of winter terms, 
( with the studios of each year rising above 
those of the previous year in regular order, so 
that at the end, the student would have finish 
ed a four years’ course of study. I would do 
this because of the great economy both of 
time and money it would render possible. 
Dr. Beal is doubtless aware that less than 200 
days of study are included in the usual col¬ 
lege year, about 120 days besides Sundays be¬ 
ing devoted to holidays and vacations. A 
winter term could be arranged so as to give 
140 days of study, or about three-fourths of 
the present college year, leaving the summer 
entire for work on the farm. 
I cannot think that I have made the mis¬ 
take in estimating the expense of such a 
course of study which Dr. Beal supposes. 
Any capable young man brought up on the 
farm, can earn an average of $20 a month for 
six months. There are $120 for his labor 
during the summer. Board in the college 
need not cost more than three to five dollars 
a week, that is, $75 to $120 for 24 weeks. 
Any one can see that the question of expense 
would not be serious in case of any capable 
young man who desired in this way to acquire 
a liberal education even if he were entirely 
dependent, as he generally would not be, upon 
his own exertions. A few could doubtless ob¬ 
tain situations as teachers and earn more dur¬ 
ing the winter; but probably not more than 
a quarter as many, as in most parts of the 
country there are already ten applications for 
every vacancy in teaching. It is also more 
manly to take your even chance where there 
is room for all. Besides, the man who studies 
in summer and teaches in winter will never 
be likely to do much on the farm. 
It will be observed that nothing is here de¬ 
termined with regard to courses of study. It 
is simply a question of practicable methods. 
If it is thought that the student^will become 
more of a man by studying agricultural 
chemistry and bovine anatomy than by tak¬ 
ing the usual course of mathematics, lan¬ 
guages and natural sciences, there is nothing 
in the plan proposed to prevent his doing so. 
We only ask that intelligent farmers’ sons in 
average circumstances, not simply the 
wealthy, be given a chance to take some 
course of study in the colleges and universi¬ 
ties endowed for their benefit—a privilege 
from which they are at present precluded be¬ 
cause the arrangement of college terms is not 
adapted to their opportunities and necessities. 
Professor Budd of the Iowa Agricultural 
College, will see that here is abundant pro¬ 
vision for preliminary courses of study which 
shall equal those of the German gymnasium 
for those who shall afterwards desire to pur¬ 
sue special courses in agricultural chemistry 
or veterinary medicine; for the plan is as avail¬ 
able for preparatory and post-graduate 
courses as tor a regular college course. The 
intelligent farmers’ sons ot America will 
study and keep studying long enough to at¬ 
tain any desirable end, if they can be allowed 
to do so without interrupting their product¬ 
ive industry, and so that the expense of col 
lege study will not be absolutely prohibitive, 
as in most cases it is at present. Among the 
many experiments to solve tne problem of ed- 
I ueation for farmers’ boys as mentioned by 
Dr. Beal, the one here proposed has never 
found a place. With better natural facilities 
for liberal culture than any other of the in¬ 
dustrial classes, they are still left behind all 
1 the rest. 
If Dr. Beal's experience shows that young 
men drift into the agricultural colleges for 
the same reasons that they drift into other 
colleges, then the indication would seem to 
be that education, not agricultural education 
especially, but general education, is what 
they are drifting after. To the same intent 
is Mr. Collingwood’s testimony that “ a vast 
majority of his college mates came to the ag¬ 
ricultural colleges because they found they 
could partly pay their way by work on the 
college farm.” If this is the case, how many 
more would go to the winter college with its 
more liberal course of study, and the oppor¬ 
tunity to wholly pay their expenses by work 
on other farms. The work of a young man 
cannot generally be as remunerative on the 
college farm as on his father’s farm, and the 
opportunity for work at the college is neces¬ 
sarily limited. Let the boys work in summer 
when their labor can pay and does pay, and 
when there is opportunity for all, and then 
with the proceeds let them attend college in 
the winter when there is little to be done on 
the farm, and when half of them can be 
spared as well as not. 
Now, suppose that a young man wants to 
become a competent agriculturist In any of 
the branches of agriculture; suppose, for ex¬ 
ample, that he wants to learn market garden¬ 
ing, a branch which has no proper illustra¬ 
tion on his father’s farm; what shall we do 
with him! Shall we send him to an agricul¬ 
tural college to study botany and bovine 
anatomy aud kindred sciences for three or 
four years? or shall we send him for a part 
of one year.to a farm school where he can see 
the„whole_thing .illustrated,.and learn it all 
by assisting in doing it? If he be a bright 
young man he will learn the whole business 
in a single season. It will cost him nothing 
but his time, for his work will pay his ex¬ 
penses, and he will know how to do the same 
thing on his father’s farm, or his own the 
next year. He will also learn much about 
other branches of agriculture, for they will 
be carried on at the school, and he will have 
abundant opportunity to observe and make 
notes of the various operations and methods; 
and “one lecture a day by the professor’' 
will explain the reasons and principles of all 
that is done. 
I cannot understand Mr. Collingwood’s re¬ 
mark that not a corporal’s guard of capable 
young men would attend such a school. 
The farmers’ sons of the Northern States are 
intelligent, resolute, self-reliant, and capable 
of earnest work. They are not snobs and 
dudes, and have given no occasion for such 
an estimate of them. Perhaps Mr. Colling- 
wood is laboring under some misapprehension 
with reference to what is proposed. At least 
his own testimony, as cited above, seems to 
contradict his opinion. 
Since the above was written I have read 
President Chamberlain’s interesting papers, 
and will notice briefly some of the points 
which he makes, f do not clearly perceive the 
distinction he draws between the “college 
idea” and the “agricultural college idea.” A 
college, as I understand it, is a place where 
young men go to study for the purpose of gen¬ 
eral culture or to acquire professional or tech¬ 
nical knowledge. Agriculture is learned not so 
much by the study ot books as in other ways. 
We waut the farm school, the experiment 
station and the agricultural newspaper for 
that. The three-term or the all-year college, 
whether agricultural or not, so far as I can 
judge, takes young men away from the farm. 
It makes them ministers, lawyers, doctors, 
teachers, engineers, veterinarians, and pro¬ 
fessors of chemistry, botany, entomology, etc. 
So far it is all right. We do not want to 
keep all the boys on the farm. In our past 
history, the farm has furnished many of our 
ablest professional men, legislators and states¬ 
men, and it ought to furnish a no less pro¬ 
portion in the future. There is no place like 
the farm to give a boy a good “send-off” 
towards capable manhood, whatever occupa¬ 
tion or profession he may choose to pursue. 
Now, we want all of these professional men 
that there is room for, but we do not want 
any more; and an agricultural college would 
be doing a very small business if it only fur¬ 
nished veterinarians for its own State and 
professors for the experiment station of the 
State. Whether these few professionals are 
to get ther education in a so -called agricultu¬ 
ral college or in a university proper, is not a 
very serious question. But the question where 
the hundreds of thousands who are to stay 
upon the farm are to get their education, and 
especially the question whether they are to 
have any chance for liberal culture or not, is 
very serious. This problem the agricultural 
colleges and State universities have not helped 
us to solve so much as they might and ought. 
Those who are to stay upon the farm should 
have the opportunity of education in such 
form as not to interrupt the continuity of 
their industrial home life, or slacken their 
interest in it, or cut off the means of support 
derived from it. I believe there is nothing 
which so well answers all the conditions of 
the problem as the winter college to alternate 
with the summer farm school. Therefore I 
say, turn the agricultural colleges into schools 
of general culture where the sons of farmers 
can pursue any desirable course of study dur¬ 
ing the leisure months of winter with great 
economy of time and at very small expense. 
I confess I was not aware of the iniquity 
lurking in this proposal as involving an un¬ 
faithful dispensation of trust funds until 
President Chamberlain pointed it out. But I 
should doubtless, at the present moment, be 
overwhelmed with confusion and mortifica¬ 
tion in view of it, had not a thought occurred 
to me which has afforded me considerable re¬ 
lief. Fortunately the testator in this case is 
not dead, but is still of sound and disposing 
mind and memory, fully competent to change 
the conditions of the trust. And doubtless 
upon the representation of auy State that the 
great purpose of the grant, namely, “the 
liberal and practical education of the indus¬ 
trial classes” would be best promoted by a 
larger liberty in the dispensation of the 
funds, permission to make any desirable 
change could be easily secured from the na¬ 
tional government. 
But let us consider for a moment what is 
meant by the language of the grant as it now 
stands. Among the “ branches of learning 
related to agriculture ” which it must be “the 
leading object to teach,” may be mentioned 
chemistry, botany and veterinary medicine. 
The relation of these and of most other 
“ branches of learning ” to practical agricul¬ 
ture ia very remote; ana to suppose 
that any farmer or any farmer’s son 
could afford to spend three or four 
years’ time and some hundreds of dollars 
in money to learn them merely because of 
their practical relation to his business, would 
be nothing less than a “fallacy.” But it 
seems to me that the terms of the grant would 
be liberally fulfilled if the college develops 
these sciences in their relation to agriculture 
so far as they have such a relation, and holds 
itself ready to teach them so far as such in¬ 
struction is called for. In this way we should 
get our veterinarians and professors of agri¬ 
cultural chemistry, botany, etc., and for my 
own part I do not see why these sciences may 
not be developed and taught in connection 
with a large and well equipped university as 
well as in a special and separate college. But 
in either case the great object of the grant 
“the liberal and practical education of the 
industrial classes” will remain unfulfilled. 
President Chamberlain adds his emphatic 
testimony to that of the other gentlemen to 
the effect that the young men who go to the 
agricultural colleges of the West, go for gen¬ 
eral culture, and in many instances will not 
take the so-called agricultural studies at all 
unless they are compelled to do so. And in 
this connection I may as well admit that, as 
suggested by President Chamberlain, I had a 
very inadequate conception ot the difficulties 
under which some of the agricultural colleges 
are laboring. If he and his coadjutors are try¬ 
ing to teach stock-raising, bovine anatomy 
and agricultural chemistry to classes who are 
unwilling to learn them, they are surely un¬ 
dertaking a very difficult task indeed. And 
if they feel impelled to this attempt through 
a sense of obligation to a literal fulfillment 
of the terms of the land grant, I think they 
would do well to apply to the State legislature 
and Congress for relief. 
The testimony which President Chamber¬ 
lain gives as to the strong feeling of farmers 
and their sons in favor of liberal culture, does 
not seem to me to warrant the confidence 
with which be predicts that the old and tried 
courses of study will fall from the position 
they have so long and honorably held. 
At the close of his first paper President 
Chamberlain proposes to me a dilemma in the 
form of a syllogism. I beg leave to amend 
the syllogism. I would state it as follows: 
All occupations, whether industrial or pro¬ 
fessional, are equally dependent upon such 
knowledge as can best be acquired in a collego 
class-room, or in the lecture hall of : a uni¬ 
versity. 
Agriculture is an industrial occupation. 
Therefore, it is as important to send a boy 
to college to learn farming, as it would be to 
send his brother to college to learn law, or 
medicine, or theology. 
I most emphatically deny the major 
premi-e. From what President Chamberlain 
says in his last paper of the equal importance 
of a knowledge of underlying principles in ag¬ 
riculture, and in law, medicine and divinity, 
I should almost expect he would affirm it. 
At any rate the syllogism in its present form 
will serve to illustrate the difference in our 
respective positions. 
President Chamberlain’s objections to the 
methods I have proposed do not seem to re- 
qnire an extended reply. It will be seen that 
in the plan of a summer farm school for 
“ practical ^education ” to alternate with; the 
winter college for .“liberal education,” there 
would be abundant opportunity to teach bot¬ 
any and entomology so far as they have any 
relation to.'practical.’agriculture,;with the; use 
of insecticides, spraying trees, etc. 
President Chamberlain.* objects to paying 
the young men for their work. I think that 
every State .in the Union, every Northern 
State at least, is abundautly able to carry on 
a farm school^at which^every branch of ag¬ 
riculture would be properly illustrated. If the 
young men simply look on they should 
of course not be paid. But if they 
take the places of the workmen five 
hours a day, as proposed,'thereby 'saving 
so much to the State, I.'seeno reason why^they 
should not be paid as other men would be'for 
performing the "same labor. They would 
earn better by assisting regularly at the 
work, and would acquire that deftness of 
hand which'President Chamberlain complains 
that they lack; and^the'product of the farm 
should pay for the labor performed.upon it, 
whether by students or others. 
So notwithstanding the arguments and ob¬ 
jections so ably stated by the distinguished 
gentlemen Vho have done’nie the honor to no¬ 
tice my previous article, I still think we ought 
topgive our farmers’ boys the winter college 
for the; opportunity of general ".culture, the 
“liberal education of the grant,‘ and the 
summer farm school fortinstruction in practi¬ 
cal agriculture, adapting'.the two institutions, 
orjthe two parts of ^the., same^institutions to 
each other as best we may. 
New Haven County, Conn. 
