264 Wisconsin state agricultural society. 
College, then, instead of requiring less preparation and less severe 
study, with a lower course, will, if it do anything more than du¬ 
plicate our High Schools and Colleges, require more time than 
the ordinary college course, more thorough preparation and 
severer study, just in proportion as it fulfils its proper function. 
It is plainly a waste of time to attempt to teach agricultural 
chemistry before the principles of chemical science have been 
mastered. Nor will a mere superficial acquaintance with these 
general laws answer here as well as in a classical course. The 
fact that these principles are to be applied renders an accurate 
and thorough knowledge necessary. The same may be said of 
the application of botany to agriculture; it requires a thorough 
previous knowledge of botanical science. So, if stock-raising is 
to be pursued upon scientific principles, the sciences whose prin¬ 
ciples are to be applied must first be mastered. In any other 
calling, lack of thorough mastery will be less injurious than in 
this. Anything less than this thorough knowledge leaves the 
farmer a mere empiric, doing what he does without knowing why. 
We are far from saying that scientific principles cannot be suc¬ 
cessfully applied by men ignorant of science, but men thus igno¬ 
rant do not scientifically apply these principles, they are guided 
wholly by imitation. The whole agricultural world is benefited 
by the discoveries of Liebig, while not one in ten thousand of 
those benefited knows a single law of chemistry. But it does not 
require an agricultural college to teach men to do what they are 
told to,—to empirically employ the discoveries of others. 
The failure of agricultural colleges to fully meet the expecta¬ 
tions of their friends finds its main explanation in this fact: They 
gave too little and they demanded too much. They have attempt¬ 
ed the impossible task of making men proficients in applied 
Science, while leaving them in comparative ignorance of the 
general principles of science. Instead of lengthening the time of 
their course to correspond with the increased demand made upon 
the student, they have actually diminished it. This must inevit¬ 
ably result in a shallow and superficial education, which will, un¬ 
less prevented by wise and timely action, bring this class of in¬ 
stitutions into deserved contempt. 
But in these very failures the way to success has been indicated; 
