AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS. 
415 
Two important reasons unite in support of the demand for 
high standards. First, agriculture is a profession embracing 
a vast field of study, and cannot be mastered in the brief 
period of one or two years, even by young men already dis¬ 
ciplined and well informed by general study, much less by 
untutored pupils fresh from the farm and the district school. 
There is no reason why all who desire knowledge of agricul¬ 
ture should not, by proper gradation of courses of study—by 
practical courses and limited courses—be accommodated at the 
college of agriculture. But there are grave reasons why agri¬ 
cultural schools should not degrade the profession they seek 
to build up and establish in honor, by making the highest 
course of study they offer a limited one, and thus turning 
away from their halls and forcing into more honored profes¬ 
sions the best endowed and best fitted young men of the 
country. 
I would open the lecture-room to all, and grant certificates 
of proficiency to such as earn them ; but the degrees of 
bachelor and master should be held in reserve for such as 
aspire to professional honors and are willing to take up and go 
through the more protracted and thorough courses of study to 
obtain them. 
As to the requisite pecuniary means, the notion is too prev¬ 
alent in this country that a few thousand dollars, say fifty to 
one hundred, should suffice for the establishment and equip¬ 
ment of an agricultural college—amounts less than equal to 
the annual income of some of the European schools of which 
account has been given in the preceding pages. The states 
should be made to understand both the importance and the 
cost of laboratories, libraries, ample means of illustration, and 
large corps of able, devoted, and fairly compensated profess¬ 
ors ; and not until there comes a recognition of all these as 
absolutely essential to success may we reasonably hope for 
institutions worthy of our agriculture and of our country. 
