1 
 
© 
 
A PAPER READ BY WlLLIAM EDGAR SlMONDS AT AN OPEN 
 MEETING OF THE CONNECTICUT STATE GRANGE, 
 
 Hartford, Conn., Jan. 11, 1898. 
 
 A substantial citizen of Connecticut, the head of a manufact- 
 uring establishment, who averred with seeming candor that he 
 had no prejudice in the matter, asked the substance of the above 
 question of the present writer — in a letter. 
 
 The question is one proper to be put, no matter what the 
 motive of the questioner. Public moneys are not to be ex- 
 pended except for good and sufficient reason — as a rule only for 
 the public benefit. If there is no sufficient reason to justify the 
 teaching of agriculture by a state institution it is time to close 
 the doors of Storrs Agricultural College. If, on the other hand, 
 a sufficient reason does exist it ought to be possible by search- 
 ing to find it out. Let us enquire. 
 
 The question which bars the way at the very threshold of 
 the inquiry is, — do those fundamental and organic principles 
 which lie at the foundation of the American social order justify 
 the expenditure of public moneys for the education — of any 
 sort — of the people in general? 
 
 No one properly informed will doubt the competence of the 
 jurist, Thomas M. Cooley, to answer that question. .At page 
 84 of “Cooley on Taxation” it is said: 
 
 “It may be safely declared that to bring a sound education 
 within the reach of all the inhabitants has been a prime ob- 
 ject of American government from the very first. It was de- 
 clared by colonial legislation and has been reiterated in consti- 
 tutional provisions to the present day. It has been regarded 
 as the imperative duty of the government; and when question 
 
9 
 
 has been made concerning it the question has related not to 
 the existence of the duty but to its extent. But the question of 
 extent is one of public policy and addresses itself to the legis- 
 lature and the people, not to the courts.” 
 
 This statement by Judge Cooley is a self-evident truth to 
 Americans. Education — the education of each individual so 
 far as is practicable — is a matter of the highest possible public 
 concern. The perpetuity of our free institutions rests absolutely 
 upon education generally diffused; republican institutions are 
 not self-executory; there are Central and South American Re- 
 publics which have most admirable constitutions and laws on 
 paper which will always remain mere paper so long as their 
 present educational conditions continue. Education is the soil 
 out of which has grown our marvelous material and social effici- 
 ency. The control of education, even to forcing all the people 
 to acquire it, and including the taxation of the whole community 
 to furnish the means, is a power exercised by the state without 
 question for hundreds of years. This exercise of a power abso- 
 lutely requisite for the preservation of our free institutions, 
 which has given justifying results — political, material and social 
 — for centuries, and as to the propriety of which the people and 
 the courts agree with substantial unanimity is something not 
 now open to dispute. 
 
 But granting the proposition just laid down, it may seem 
 still possible to urge that however sound and justifiable it may 
 be to expend public moneys for that kind of education which is 
 useful to men in all callings of life, as for instance, in the teach- 
 ing of reading, writing and arithmetic, it does not follow that it 
 is justifiable to expend public moneys for teaching a special kind 
 of education, of direct and immediate use only to a special class 
 of people, such, for instance, as the science and art of agri- 
 culture. 
 
 The last sentence in the quotation from Judge Cooley’s re- 
 marks deals with precisely such an attempted discrimination as 
 that. He says — “the question of extent (of education) is one 
 of public policy and addresses itself to the legislature and the 
 people, not to the courts,” meaning that public moneys can 
 properly and lawfully be expended for special education if the 
 legislature sees fit so to order. 
 
3 
 
 In examining other than superficially an attempted distinc- 
 tion of the kind just mentioned it is proper at the outset to in- 
 quire what education is, in its true essence, and why the body 
 politic desires each individual to have it. There is a certain 
 kind of basic education which is a practical necessity for every 
 man in civilized society — that which comprehends reading, writ- 
 ing and arithmetic. Every man needs that much of education 
 in order that he may transact the most ordinary kinds of busi- 
 ness. But the public does not specially care to furnish a man 
 with that much of education simply because it is of personal 
 value to him. The public interest in a man’s education is not 
 a charitable thing; it is a matter of enlightened selfishness. 
 The public only cares that a man shall have an education be- 
 cause the having of it by him inures to the public good. That 
 education which the public cares for necessarily includes this 
 primary sort of education and it may, therefore, be dismissed 
 from further consideration as regards the question with which 
 we are now concerned. 
 
 The present writer believes that education, in its real 
 essence, consists in the acquirement of the habit of observation 
 and study, and the habit of correct reasoning on whatThe mind 
 perceives and what it conceives — to make which effective for 
 most purposes needs to have added the capacity for clear and 
 accurate expression. Incidentally, in the acquirement of an ed- 
 ucation, one may lay away a great store of facts, but that, after 
 all, is only an incident. The body politic desires the individual 
 to have education because reason indicates and experience 
 demonstrates that the great majority of those who have it are — 
 by reason of the resulting development of their understanding 
 and intelligence — devoted to the maintenance of free institu- 
 tions ; they are apt to love order and justice and to give encour- 
 agement to improvement and enterprise. 
 
 Education is not, primarily and chiefly, the storing of the 
 memory with facts. It is primarily and chiefly the improve- 
 ment of man as a perceiving and reasoning machine. It is the 
 improvement of the individual as a perceiving and reasoning 
 machine, through education, at which the body politic aims. 
 
 We are now ready to ask whether the science and art of 
 
4 
 
 agriculture present a field suitable and profitable for observation 
 and study, with phenomena and questions fit for and deserving 
 of the application of man’s reasoning powers thereto. The 
 question can be answered on the instant. The man who can 
 name a better field for observation and study or he who can 
 cite phenomena and questions which form better grist for a 
 reasoner’s mill will well deserve the title of an original dis- 
 coverer. 
 
 The student of agriculture has a vast area of the whole 
 kingdom of nature which not only invites but demands his 
 observation and study, including the forecasting of the weather; 
 the chemistry of widely differing soils, foods and plants under 
 about all possible conditions of climate and temperature; the 
 extremely subtle chemistry of cream setting and butter making; 
 the physiology of plants and animals; irrigation and drainage 
 with their effect on drought and moisture; the mystery of seed 
 germination with the added mystery of growth to leaf, flower 
 and fruit; determining which of the burrowing, creeping, walk- 
 ing and flying things are friends to agriculture and which are 
 foes ; the improvement of plants and animals through heredity, 
 treatment and breeding; and so on and on. A catalogue of all 
 the phenomena that a genuine student of agriculture must ob- 
 serve and study would be extensive indeed ; and it is one of the 
 plainest truths in the world that they furnish an unequalled 
 grist for the application thereto of thought and reason, not only 
 in their variety but in the value of the results, material and 
 mental, possible to be obtained. 
 
 The vital purpose of education is the training and energiz- 
 ing of the faculties of observation and reason ; and the study of 
 agriculture is quite as well adapted to the attainment of that 
 purpose as any other study whatsoever. 
 
 That proposition may have in it something of novelty for 
 some persons, chiefly for the reason that education of the ad- 
 vanced sort, heretofore, has mainly centered in a study of Greek 
 and Latin with some addition of language, logic, philosophy, 
 physics, physical science, mathematics and modern languages. 
 
 The novelty of the proposition need not of itself distress any 
 body. Certain of the physical sciences now have their acknowl- 
 
5 
 
 edged places in the higher educational curriculum but it is not 
 long ago that the ancient languages with the fringes just men- 
 tioned — but not including physical science — had the field all to 
 themselves and flouted the notion of sharing that field. The 
 very beginning of the change, as regards the whole civilized 
 world, seems to have been in 1T2T when Thomas Hollis, a Lon- 
 don merchant, amidst jeers and sneers from the learned world 
 of that day, persisted in his design to endow Harvard College 
 with a “professorship of mathematics and physical science.” 
 The establishment of this professorship at Harvard made no 
 particular impression on the college world. 
 
 The next step in a similar direction — this time distinctively 
 recognizing industrialism — was tqken in 1816. Then Harvard 
 College induced by the liberality of Count Rumford (originally 
 Benjamin Thompson of Woburn, Mass.,) established a “new 
 institution and professorship in order to teach by regular courses 
 of academical and public lectures, accompained by proper ex- 
 periments, the utility of the physical and mathematical sciences 
 and for the extension of the industry, prosperity and happiness 
 and the well-being of society.” The beginnings at Harvard 
 under the Rumford professorship were not extensive; they con- 
 sisted of four lectures a year; in 182T the professor resigned 
 and the chair remained unfilled for seven years. The first sub- 
 stantial addition of physical science to a college curriculum 
 seems to have been made by the University of Virginia from 
 1818 to 1825 under Jefferson’s direct effort and as a result, in 
 substantial measure, of what George Washington had said and 
 written. The example set by this institution seems to have 
 created a general demand for the teaching of those branches of 
 learning in American colleges and it gradually came about. 
 But practically it is only within the last seventy-five years that 
 physical sciences have been permitted within the charmed circle 
 which furnishes the higher education. 
 
 The idea of getting the essential results of a genuine higher 
 education by the teaching of agriculture — upon a good common 
 school foundation — supplemented by economics, American po- 
 litical history and thorough drill in the use of the English 
 language, is far less novel to-day than was the idea of getting 
 
6 
 
 it by teaching physical science seventy-five years ago. There- 
 fore nobody needs to be disturbed by the proposition by reason 
 of its novelty. 
 
 The field of phenomena and fact offered by agriculture is 
 broader and richer than that offered by any other single field 
 whatsoever and it is a necessary consequence that when we 
 have — as we shall have whenever the demand therefor is made 
 effective — teachers as competent to instruct in that field as those 
 now readily to be had for other fields, the results of the teach- 
 ing of agriculture will be correspondingly rich and extensive. 
 The possibilities of the case are, by no means to be judged by 
 what has been accomplished at the very beginning of the enter- 
 prise. 
 
 In view of the great field of research and discovery there is 
 in agriculture, the vast variety of phenomena it does and must 
 continue to present for reasoning and experiment, and the value 
 of the results both material and mental, possible to be obtained, 
 it is presumptuous for the friend of the teaching of any other 
 thing to assume or claim that there is any other field better 
 fitted for that improvement of man as a perceiving and reason- 
 ing machine which is the essential aim of education, so far as 
 the public interest therein is concerned. It would be well for 
 those who doubt the soundness of this proposition to review the 
 investigations made by Lawes and Gilbert at Rothamsted dur- 
 ing the last half century and their mental and material results; 
 and a glance at Edward Atkinson’s letter on the “Marsden 
 Process” in the “Country Gentleman” of Dec. 17, 1897, might 
 be of value. 
 
 Possibly what has already been said is sufficient to justify 
 the expenditure of public moneys for the teaching of the science 
 and art of agriculture but there are special reasons not yet 
 mentioned which justify it. 
 
 Agriculture is the great basic industry of the world. Most 
 other industries are based and built upon it. Those industries 
 which are not so based and built are yet dependent on it for 
 their existence and prosperity. With the exception of the pro- 
 ducts of the fisheries, and such game as comes from remaining 
 areas of wildness, all our food is the product of agriculture. 
 
7 
 
 With the slight exception of such furs, feathers, and skins as 
 are taken from wild creatures, all our clothing is made from the 
 products of agriculture. Food and clothing are the two great 
 primal human necessities and they are the products of agricul- 
 ture. Civilization is not possible without civilized agriculture. 
 And no other industry can exist, in even a decent degree of 
 effectiveness and proficiency, in the absence of agriculture. 
 
 Thoughtful men, soberly mindful of the public welfare, have 
 always recognized these truths. Washington showed his ap- 
 preciation of them in his last message when he said: 
 
 “It will not be doubted that with reference either to individ- 
 ual or national welfare agriculture is a prime necessity. In 
 proportion as nations advance in population and other circum- 
 stances of maturity this fact becomes more apparent and 
 renders cultivation of the soil more and more the object of pub- 
 lic patronage. Institutions for promoting it grow up supported 
 by the public purse, and to what other object can it be more 
 dedicated with greater propriety ? ” 
 
 And George William Curtis said: 
 
 “ The test of national welfare is the intelligence and prosper- 
 ity of the farmer.” 
 
 Quotations to the same purport might be multiplied almost 
 indefinitely but the words of these two wise and noble men 
 suffice. 
 
 Let some comparison be instituted between manufactures and 
 agriculture, both as regards the United States and the state of 
 Connecticut. By the census of 1890 (Census Abstract, p.141), 
 there were 4,712,622 persons in the United States engaged in 
 “manufacturing and mechanical industries,” a number which 
 needs to be diminished one -half for the purposes of the present 
 comparison (see page civ.-cvi., population vol., part 2,) exclud- 
 ing 59,692 bakers, 205,028 blacksmiths, 105,747 shoe repairers, 
 45,988 builders and contractors, 104,951 butchers, 11,148 butter 
 and cheese makers, 611,025 carpenters and joiners, 12,536 watch 
 repairers, 494,696 dressmakers and milliners, 4,543 locksmiths 
 and bell hangers, 1,176 hair workers, 158,701 masons, 218,988 
 painters and glaziers, 12,295 paper hangers, 19,962 photogra- 
 phers, 38,932 plasterers, 28,206 plumbers, 7,023 roofers and 
 slaters, 181,649 tailors and 12,713 upholsterers — in all 2,334,999 
 to be deducted, leaving the number of people engaged in man- 
 
ufactures 2,877,623, while the number engaged in agriculture 
 (Census Abstract, p. 78) was (laborers, 3,004,061; apiarists, 
 1,733; dairy men and women, 17,895; farmers, planters and 
 overseers, 5,281,557 ; gardeners, florists, nurserymen, etc., 72,- 
 601; stockraisers, herders and drovers, 70,729; other agricul- 
 tural pursuits, 17,147 ; butter and cheese makers, 11,148) ; 
 8,476,911. And while the capital invested in “manufacturing 
 and mechanical industries” (Census Abstract, p. 141), including 
 twice the number of people actually engaged in manufactures, 
 was 6,500 millions of dollars (16,525,156,486), that invested in 
 agriculture (Census Abstract, p. 99) was some 16,000 millions 
 ($15,982,267,689). 
 
 These ratios do not obtain in Connecticut, but nevertheless 
 the Connecticut ratios are not what they are generally supposed 
 to be. The census of 1890 (Census Abstract, p. 99) gives Con- 
 necticut farm valuations (land, fences and buildings, $95,000,- 
 595; implements and machines, $3,075,490; live stock, $9,974,- 
 618;) as $108,050,708, and the capital invested in “manufactur- 
 ing and mechanical industries” (Census Abstract, p. 141) as 
 $227,004,496. Eliminating, for reasons already stated, oneflialf 
 of this as investment in “mechanical industries,” other than 
 “manufacturing industries,” leaves the capital invested in man- 
 ufactures in Connecticut little if any exceeding that invested in 
 agriculture, a position that is strengthened by the Connecticut 
 grand list for October 1, 1896, which gives “2,474,213 acres of 
 land,” valued at $63,557,617, and “11,635 mills, distilleries, 
 manufactories and investment in mechanical and manufacturing 
 operations,” valued at $82,224,663. Increase both these items 
 by the well-known margin between tax-list values and those 
 which owners expect to realize under favorable conditions; 
 decrease the larger sum by the amount which belongs to “me- 
 chanical operations,” as distinguished from “manufacturing 
 operations,” and the result will well accord with that deduced 
 as above from the census reports. 
 
 The census of 1890 (Census Abstract, p. 76,) gives the num- 
 ber of people in Connecticut engaged in agriculture, fisheries 
 and mining as 48,676. It elsewhere appears that something 
 over 3,000 are to be credited to fisheries and almost none to 
 
9 
 
 mining; so that Connecticut stands credited with upwards of 
 45,000 agriculturists, a figure that needs to be increased by add- 
 ing bee-keepers, dairymen and daily women, cheese and butter 
 makers, gardeners, florists, nurserymen, vine growers, stock 
 raisers, herders and drovers. 
 
 The 1890 census (Census Abstract, p. 141,) gives the num- 
 ber of people in Connecticut engaged in “manufacturing and 
 mechanical industries ” as 149,189, of whom (Pop. vol., part 2, 
 p. cx.,) 85,804 are women. When this 149,189 is cut in half, to 
 eliminate those engaged in “mechanical industries ” which are 
 not “manufacturing industries,” and about one-third of the re- 
 mainder are dropped to eliminate the children, the number of 
 people engaged in manufactures in Connecticut exceeds little or 
 not at all the number of people engaged in agriculture. 
 
 But notwithstanding the vast preponderance of agriculture 
 over manufactures in the United States at large, both in capital 
 and workers, and the substantial equality of the two in Con- 
 necticut, the earnings of manufacturing and other mechanical 
 workers are in vastly the larger ratio. 
 
 While some four and two-thirds millions of people engaged 
 throughout the United States in “manufacturing and mechan- 
 ical industries,” with a capital of 6,500 millions of dollars 
 (Census Abstract, p. 141,) turned their labor into (19,372,487,283 
 gross product, less $ 5, 162, 044, 076 cost of materials=$4,165,- 
 393,207 net) some 4,000 millions of dollars of product, on the 
 other hand some eight and a half millions of people engaged 
 throughout the United States in agriculture, with a capital of 
 some 16,000 millions of dollars (Census Abstract, p. 99), only 
 realized ($2,460,107,454 farm products, less fertilizers $38,469,- 
 598=$2,421,637,856 net) some 2,500 millions of dollars which, 
 at the manufacturing ratio — even with per capita equality of 
 capital — would have been three times as much, or $7,513,793,276. 
 And the returns for manufacturing labor in Connecticut are 
 quite as much above those for agricultural labor as they are 
 throughout the United States at large (Census Abstract, p. 99, 
 141). 
 
 If these small agricultural earnings, taken with the fact that 
 agriculture is the great necessary and basic industry, do not 
 
10 
 
 constitute a justification for the fostering of agriculture by the 
 expenditure of public moneys for the teaching of its art and 
 science, then evidence and argument and reason are but 
 vanity and vexation of spirit. 
 
 If any man is inclined to say or to think that Connecticut 
 can afford to neglect her agricultural interests in view of the 
 wealth and prosperity which have come to her through manu- 
 factures, it will be better than well enough to remember that 
 manufactures can never in the future be, relatively to other 
 industries, what they have been in the past. The capacity for 
 the production of manufactures is almost unlimited, both here 
 and elsewhere, but there is no possibility of a corresponding 
 increase of a market for those manufactures. The present man- 
 ufacturing capacity of the world is fully equal to its consuming 
 capacity. Meanwhile other states in America, and foreign 
 nations as well, are developing manufacturing industries with a 
 rapidity which surely foretells a competition for Connecticut 
 amounting to a limitation in the near future if not to distinct 
 repression. The decline of the cotton manufactures of New 
 England has already begun; that of heavy manufactures of 
 iron will soon follow. 
 
 Along with the general development of manufactures and 
 commerce throughout the world, economic and social relations 
 grow increasingly complex and delicate ; disturbances in those 
 relations will in the future be of more frequent occurrence than 
 heretofore; their influence will be more widely spread, and 
 their disastrous effects more lasting. 
 
 Agriculture, as a gainful industry, has an element of stabil- 
 ity which will be lacking in the manufacturing industry of the 
 future. The area of cultivable land is a fixed quantity while 
 the population of the earth, under improved and improving hy- 
 gienic conditions, is increasing at a rate unequalled in the 
 world’s history. 
 
 All these people must have food wrung from the bosom of 
 mother earth and no man can add an acre of surface to the 
 globe. It will be very strange if there are not periods within 
 the next half century when that stability characteristic of agri- 
 culture proves the mainstay of communities ordinarily depend- 
 
11 
 
 ent in large part on manufactures. Neither Connecticut nor 
 any other manufacturing state can afford to neglect its agricul- 
 ture. 
 
 After years of consideration and debate, Congress, in 1862, 
 entered deliberately upon the policy of fostering agriculture by 
 providing endowments for its teaching. In 1887 and 1890 Con- 
 gress added to those endowments and the states generally have 
 with equal deliberation availed themselves of the aid thus prof- 
 fered. The condition of the development of this congressional 
 enterprise down to 1896, is indicated, with some omissions, in 
 a little pamphlet issued by the United States Department of 
 Agriculture entitled “Statistics of Agricultural Colleges and 
 Experiment Stations, 1896.” 
 
 This pamphlet gives the following list of State Institutions 
 enjoying the Federal grants under the Acts of Congress of July 
 2, 1862 and August 30, 1890. 
 
 Alabama. — State Agricultural and Mechanical College, 
 (Alabama Polytechnical Institute) at Auburn; State Normal 
 and Industrial School, at Normal. 
 
 Arizona. — University of Arizona, at Tucson. 
 
 Arkansas. — Arkansas Industrial University, at Fayette- 
 ville. 
 
 California. — University of California, at Berkeley. 
 
 Colorado. — The State Agricultural College, at Fort Col- 
 lins. 
 
 Connecticut. — Storrs Agricultural College, at Storrs. 
 
 Delaware.— Delaware College, at Newark; State College 
 for Colored Students, at Dover. 
 
 Florida. — Florida Agricultural College, at Lake City; 
 Florida State Normal and Industrial College, at Tallahassee. 
 
 Georgia. — Georgia State College of Agriculture and Me- 
 chanic Arts, at Athens; Georgia State Industrial College, at 
 College. 
 
 Idaho. — University of Idaho, at Moscow. 
 
 Illinois. — University of Illinois, at Urbana. 
 
 Indiana. — Purdue University, at Lafayette. 
 
 Iowa. — Iowa State College of Agriculture and Mechanic 
 Arts, at Ames. 
 
12 
 
 Kansas. — Kansas State Agricultural College, at Manhattan. 
 
 Kentucky. — Agricultural and Mechanical College of Ken- 
 tucky, at Lexington; State Normal School for Colored Persons, 
 at Frankfort. 
 
 Louisiana. — Louisiana State University and Agricultural 
 and Mechanical College, at Baton Rouge; Southern University 
 and Agricultural and Mechanical College, at New Orleans. 
 
 Maine. — Maine State College of Agriculture and the Me- 
 chanic Arts, at Orono. 
 
 Maryland. — Maryland Agricultural College, at College 
 Park. 
 
 Massachusetts. — Massachusetts Agricultural College, at 
 Amherst. 
 
 Michigan. — Michigan State Agricultural College, at Agri- 
 cultural College. 
 
 Minnesota. — The University of Minnesota, at Minneapolis. 
 
 Mississippi. — Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical Col- 
 lege, at Agricultural College ; Alcorn Agricultural and Mechan- 
 ical College, at Westside. 
 
 Missouri. — College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts of 
 the University of the State of Missouri, at Jefferson City ; 
 Lincoln Institute, at Jefferson City. 
 
 Montana. — The College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, 
 at Bozeman. 
 
 Nebraska. — The University of Nebraska, at Lincoln. 
 
 Nevada.- -Nevada State University, at Reno. 
 
 New Hampshire. — The New Hampshire College of Agri- 
 culture and the Mechanic Arts, at Durham. 
 
 New Jersey. — Rutgers Scientific School (The New Jersey 
 State College for the Benefit of Agriculture and the Mechanic 
 Arts, at New Brunswick.) 
 
 New Mexico. — The New Mexico College of Agriculture 
 and Mechanic Arts, at Mesilla Park. 
 
 New York. — Cornell University, at Ithaca. 
 
 North Carolina. — The North Carolina College of Agri- 
 culture and Mechanic Arts, at West Raleigh; The Agricult- 
 ural and Mechanical College for the Colored Race, at Greens- 
 boro. 
 
13 
 
 North Dakota. — North Dakota Agricultural College, at 
 Fargo. 
 
 Ohio. — Ohio State University, at Columbus. 
 
 Oklahoma. — Oklahoma Agricultural and Mechanical Col- 
 lege, at Stillwater. 
 
 Oregon. — State Agricultural College of Oregon, at Cor- 
 vallis. 
 
 Pennsylvania. — The Pennsylvania State College, at State 
 College. 
 
 Rhode Island. — Rhode Island College of Agriculture and 
 Mechanic Arts, at Kingston. 
 
 South Carolina. — The Clemson Agricultural College, at 
 Clemson College. 
 
 South Dakota. — South Dakota Agricultural College, at 
 Brookings. 
 
 Tennessee. — University of Tennessee, at Knoxville. 
 
 Texas. — Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, at 
 College Station; Prairie View State Normal School, at Prairie 
 View. 
 
 Utah. — The Agricultural College of Utah, at Logan. 
 
 Vermont. — University of Vermont and State Agricultural 
 College, at Burlington. 
 
 Virginia. — Virginia Polytechnic Institute (State Agricult- 
 ural and Mechanical College), at Blacksburg; Hampton Normal 
 and Agricultural College, at Hampton. 
 
 Washington. — Agricultural College and School of Science 
 of the State of Washington, at Pullman. 
 
 West Virginia. — West Virginia University, at Morgan- 
 town; The West Virginia Colored Institute, at Farm. 
 
 Wisconsin. — University of Wisconsin, at Madison. 
 
 Wyoming. — University of Wyoming, at Laramie. 
 
 The pamphlet gives “ value of permanent funds and equip- 
 ment of land grant colleges, 1896,” as exhibited on the next two 
 pages. 
 
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Value of Permanent Funds and Equipment of Land-grant Colleges, 1896. ( Continued .) 
 
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 neous 
 
 equipment. 
 
 § ;s 
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 niocf© : 
 
 20,437.17 
 
 2,000.00 
 
 3,000.00 
 
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 3,000.00 
 
 $4,250,381.00 
 
 Library. 
 
 §!!l!ill!l 
 
 t>O<NOjHC0r-T 
 
 :|||||| 
 
 20,000.00 
 
 600.00 
 
 50,000.00 
 
 5,000.00 
 
 $1,171,381.00 
 
 Machinery. 
 
 2 \i 
 
 i ii 
 
 t> lr 
 % \ 
 
 2.500.00 
 
 1.500.00 
 
 9.752.00 
 
 100.00 
 
 14,963.54 
 
 50,000.00 
 
 8,000.00 
 
 12,000.00 
 
 12.60 
 
 10,000.00 
 
 12,000.00 
 
 30.000. 00 
 
 65.000. 00 
 
 50,000.00 
 
 8,000.00 
 
 50.000. 00 
 
 10.000. 00 
 
 $1,055,607.00 
 
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 9,000.00 
 26, 9( 
 27,500.00 
 
 15.000. 00 
 
 30.000. 00 
 
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 50.000. 00 
 
 2,000.00 
 
 200,000.00 
 
 10.000. 00 
 
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 Buildings. 
 
 $1,623,916.79 
 
 72,554.49 
 
 40.000. 00 
 
 82.500.00 
 
 20.000. 00 
 
 52.600.00 
 600,000.00 
 122,100.00 
 
 194.000. 00 
 
 33.000. 00 
 
 80.000. 00 
 
 159.400.00 
 314,707.91 
 
 157.308.00 
 474,561.26 
 
 139.000. 00 
 
 404.000. 00 
 
 135.000. 00 
 
 215.000. 00 
 25,000.00 
 
 1,000,000.00 
 
 100.000. 00 
 
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 X 
 
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 Farm and 
 grounds 
 owned by 
 the insti- 
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 $99,218.91 
 
 19.500.00 
 5,000.00 
 
 25.000. 00 
 5,000.00 
 
 14.250.00 
 
 80.000. 00 
 
 15.000. 00 
 
 15.000. 00 
 
 89.000. 00 
 106,370.00 
 
 48.320.00 
 
 26.800.00 
 
 15.000. 00 
 
 30.000. 00 
 
 52.000. 00 
 
 10.000. 00 
 40,000.00 
 
 2.750.00 
 150,000.00 
 
 3.270.00 
 
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 Land-grant 
 of 1862 
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 $155,000.00 
 
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 135.500.00 
 
 344.312.00 
 285,000.00 
 
 90,000.00 
 
 302,000.00 
 
 
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 Oklahoma 
 
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 Pennsylvania 
 
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 So. Carolina (Clemson Col.) 
 So. Carolina (Orangeburg). 
 
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 Vermont 
 
 Virginia (Blacksburg) 
 
 Virginia (Hampton) 
 
 Washington 
 
 W. Virginia (Morgantown) 
 W. Virginia (Farm) 
 
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 Totals 
 
16 
 
 It would seem that all the states have the agricultural 
 colleges or schools with an average permanent investment al- 
 ready of more than a million dollars each. 
 
 Connecticut cannot afford to do less than keep pace with 
 her sister states. 
 
 Nor yet has the whole story been told. We are just across 
 the threshold of a condition of public affairs wherein the main- 
 tenance of the stability and prosperity of the entire agricultural 
 community is of absolutely vital interest to the nation at large, 
 and to the state of Connecticut as well, for a reason not yet 
 suggested. 
 
 Rightfully or wrongfully as the case may be, we are at the 
 beginning of a long, determined, and at times violent struggle 
 which has for its aim a tremendous change in the final distribu- 
 tion of the earnings of labor and of capital. The demand of 
 the agitators of the struggle is that the advantages due to in- 
 vention and to improvements in production and transportation 
 shall be made to inure to the benefit of all the people in equal 
 part; that all shall have a like share in the natural resources of 
 the earth and in all unearned increments of value ; that all men 
 shall have equality of opportunity irrespective of differing con- 
 ditions of wealth and birth; that nothing savoring of monoply 
 shall be permitted to exist; that each man shall have the largest 
 possible share of the ultimate as well as immediate product of 
 his labor; and that all this shall be brought about by laws as 
 inflexible and all compelling as those which swing the earth in 
 its mighty orbit. Such is the ideal — sometimes lacking in in- 
 telligent and coherent expression — which lies at the core of our 
 labor disturbances and our present political tumults, notwith- 
 standing some admixture of mere selfishness and ignoble 
 discontent. 
 
 It needs no extra keenness of the vision to perceive the bat- 
 tle is already on and no gift of prophecy to foresee that it will 
 increase rather than diminish in intensity for long years to come 
 and that it is wholly probable that no man on earth, will live to 
 see the final solution. 
 
 The writer does not for an instant contemplate the utter- 
 ance of any expression here of opinion as to what that final 
 
IT 
 
 result will be or what it ought to be. He is simply dealing now 
 with the period of convulsion upon which we have entered as a 
 mighty fact and with the relation of the agricultural community 
 to that fact. 
 
 If Paris had really been France as its people have been fond 
 of saying in the past, there would to-day be nothing left worthy 
 of the name of France. Had it not been for the agricultural 
 community of France that nation would have been torn into 
 disjointed fragments long ago by the shifty and mercurial popu- 
 lace of Paris. 
 
 What probabilities of perpetuity would remain to our insti- 
 tutions if all the people of the United States were what the 
 cities of New York and Chicago are? True it is that the great 
 cities draw to themselves quite their share of men who are 
 bright and strong but brightness and strength alone never yet 
 saved a people or a nation from destruction and decay. The 
 one element of character which, more than any other differ- 
 entiates the English people from the old Romans, alike as 
 they are in aptitude for war and terrestrial dominion, is 
 conservatism — the taking of ample time to think a thing over 
 before consenting to any change; it is the one element which 
 has already given the English their larger permanence and suc- 
 cess and it yet casts a long light adown their future. 
 
 It is that conservatism, tempered by intelligence, which 
 American agriculturists are adapted to furnish for the long and 
 uncertain struggle upon which we have entered. The import- 
 ance of the preservation of this great conservative element 
 cannot be over-estimated. It is to be the balance wheel of the 
 whirl which at times is like to threaten the very existence of 
 the Republic and even the duration of the social order in any 
 form. A successful and peaceful issue of this struggle may not 
 be possible without it. 
 
 This is one reason which, here in Connecticut, should give 
 pause to the thoughtful men of the cities in any project to 
 diminish the political power of the rural communities to the 
 extent of enacting representation in the General Assembly in 
 exact accordance with population. In this matter the men who 
 have the good of the cities at heart are sure to find their ac- 
 
18 
 
 count in fostering agriculture and maintaining the ranks of 
 the farmers undiminished. 
 
 The drift of the young from farm to city is clear before all 
 eyes ; they like the labor which is turned into money at regular 
 intervals; they like bath rooms, water closets and furnace heat; 
 they like to be in social touch with their fellows, within easy 
 reach of entertainments and they appreciate the passing show 
 of city life with its apparently greater prizes. There are men 
 and women for whom the first uncovering of the brown earth 
 in spring, the early struggle of the grass to be green, the un- 
 folding of the leaf, the white wonder of the apple blossoms, the 
 grain billowing under the wind of June, the new mown hay in 
 summer, the ripened corn of September, the leaves of October 
 rich with the hues caught from all the sunsets of their lives, 
 the starry heavens of the clear winter nights and the largeness 
 of God’s temple built over all more than compensate for what 
 the cities have to offer. But some kinds of human nature are 
 more common than some other kinds and the drift to the cities 
 continues nevertheless. 
 
 For the nation’s good and for the preservation of a powerful 
 conservative force pending the settlement of the great questions 
 with which America is now grappling, all practicable means for 
 stopping this drift from country to city should be adopted. 
 The advent of the bicycle and the trolley could not be more 
 timely if it had been, as it may have been, the direct and imme- 
 diate work of omniscience. The good-roads movement is a god- 
 send in the same direction; and no man in city or country 
 should hesitate in incurring whatever public debt may be neces- 
 sary to convert all our chief highways into the best practicable 
 condition. The farmers themselves should see to it that certain 
 of the so-called “modern conveniences” are adopted in their 
 homes. Bath rooms, water closets, and furnace or steam 
 heat should be as common in the country as in the city. And 
 when it comes to fostering agriculture and improving the at- 
 tractiveness of rural life by diffusing an improved education 
 among the farmers by the teaching of agriculture in a state 
 institution, it is the height of absurdity to deal with the matter 
 with other than a liberal hand in view of the gravity of the 
 political results involved. 
 
19 
 
 It is not an unknown proposition, here in Connecticut, that 
 to maintain an agricultural college in each state involves the 
 repeated duplication of the same kind and degree of research 
 and experiment and that it would be a wiser expenditure of 
 public moneys intended for the benefit of agriculture to gather 
 together a great body of scientists at one place — Washington 
 city for instance — where competent men, each group working 
 by itself in a special line, should delve into the problems of 
 agriculture, with no duplication of work, and be enabled to con- 
 tinuously make deeper and deeper progress into the secrets of 
 nature. 
 
 It might almost as well be argued that the cause of educa- 
 tion in general could be best furthered in the same way and 
 that if we only had a big enough university at Washington, the 
 little red school houses and the high schools of the villages and 
 cities could be dispensed with. The very first object and pur- 
 pose of the establishment of agricultural colleges in the several 
 states is to disseminate agricultural education abroad and among 
 all the people. For such a purpose as that — the first and high- 
 est purpose aimed at in the multiplication of the agricultural 
 colleges — the supposed great body of agricultural scientists at 
 Washington would be an impotent and helpless institution. ' 
 
 Such a great central institution for original and ever deep- 
 ening research, by the most competent scientists to be found, 
 ought to exist and the federal government ought to pay for it. 
 There ought to be just such a purveyor of information whose 
 discoveries should be delivered to the people by the local insti- 
 tutions, but as an instrument of general agricultural education 
 itself and without the aid and instrumentality of the local 
 agencies, it would have almost no practical value whatever. 
 
 Moreover the United States of America constitute a vast 
 terrestrial empire embracing about every kind and shade of 
 temperature, climate, soil and adaptability for crops. The range 
 and variety in each of these matters is vast. Drainage is a 
 matter of great interest along the valley of the Wabash as is 
 irrigation in Arizona, but neither is of everlasting importance 
 on the slopes of the Green Mountains. It would not be useful 
 in any high degree to teach the agriculture of cotton and sugar 
 
20 
 
 in Connecticut nor that of cranberries and herds-grass in Missis- 
 sippi. For the observation and study of all these differing condi- 
 tions and phenomena and for the teaching of agriculture adapted 
 thereto, the chances are more than a hundred to one in favor 
 of getting the better results from the many state colleges than 
 from a single great federal institution. And still further, with- 
 out the state colleges, the local lecture systems, and the exten- 
 sion courses referred to hereinafter — which possibly quite equal 
 in value the immediate college work — would not be a possibility. 
 
 Again, it has been said that the teaching of agriculture, under 
 the federal endowments and state appropriations, could be more 
 economically and effectively accomplished by and at the institu- 
 tions already long established of the ordinary college type. 
 That proposition has already been carefully considered. A com- 
 petent committee on education, appointed by the National 
 Grange, made an investigation into this matter as regards the 
 states generally a few years ago. They rendered their written 
 report in 1892, and concluded with these words : 
 
 “ If these records show anything, they plainly show that thus 
 far none of the Agricultural Colleges which is connected 
 with a classical institution has been successful in imparting 
 agricultural education, and a portion of them have been most 
 dismal failures, while on the other hand, the independent Agri- 
 cultural and Mechanical Colleges are, without exception, emi- 
 nently successful.” 
 
 ********** 
 
 “Prof. Atkinson, of West Virginia University, says : ‘Indus- 
 trial colleges, to succeed, must be managed by men who are 
 known to be in sympathy with the people who are to be bene - 
 fitted, and can never succeed as a side show to a classical insti' 
 tution any more than this progressive nineteenth' century can 
 live in the atmosphere of ancient Greece or Rome.’ ” 
 
 And thereupon this committee asked for a federal law sepa- 
 rating the agricultural colleges from the classical institutions. 
 
 It may not be amiss to give here some idea of the work which 
 Stars' Agricultural College is trying to do. Under “Mathe- 
 matics ” it teaches arithmetic, bookkeeping, algebra, geometry, 
 trigonometry and surveying. Under “ Domestic Science” (for 
 the young women) it teaches cooking, sewing, laundering, 
 household economics, hygiene, sanitation and music. Under 
 “Mechanical Arts” it teaches physics, free-hand drawing^ 
 
21 
 
 mechanical drawing, and the simpler forms of iron and wood 
 working. As required by the .federal law it teaches military 
 tactics. Under “English” it teaches language, rhetoric, com- 
 position and elocution, with courses in English and American 
 literature. Under “Agriculture ” it teaches agriculture, botany, 
 chemistry, entomology, geology, horticulture, physiology, veter- 
 inary science and zoology. Under what might be called “ Citi- 
 zenship” it teaches history, civil government, political economy 
 and ethics. Practical instruction on the farm and in the orchard 
 and garden goes hand in hand with teaching from text books. *■" 
 
 Since the beginning of 1881 the college has had one thousand 
 and sixty-eight students, and graduated one hundred and fifty- 
 three. 
 
 The work of the college is not confined to the college build- 
 ings and grounds. About two years since it began to send out 
 its professors and teachers to lecture before farmers’ conventions, 
 farmers’ institutes and granges, the lectures being accompanied 
 by stereopticon illustrations when practicable. The president 
 of the college has one hundred and twenty-five of these lectures 
 to his credit on entomology, geology, and the natural features 
 of the Yellowstone Park; the professor of chemistry and physics 
 has thirty-six of these lectures to his credit on “Western 
 Scenery and Life,” “ What the Agricultural College Can Give 
 a Farmer’s JBoy,” “Beauty and Utility,” “An Uplift in Rural 
 Life,” “Chemistry of Plant Life,” “Agricultural Chemistry,” 
 “Chemistry of Carbon Compounds,” “Climatology,” “Home 
 Studies for Rural People,” and “Dietary and Food Economics 
 the professor of agriculture has nineteen lectures to his credit 
 on “The Dairy Cow and Her Products,” “Forage Crops as 
 Substitutes for Hay,” “Soiling and Soiling Crops,” “Feeding 
 Dairy Stock,” “ Fertilizer Experiments” and “ Dairy Education 
 in Connecticut;” the professor of horticulture has ten lectures 
 to his credit relating to his department, the professor of veterin- 
 ary science six, and the teachers of domestic science eight — in 
 • all, two hundred and four lectures within about the time stated. 
 
 Then the college has an extension department, the work of 
 which was begun in October, 1896, combining the correspond- 
 ence-school idea with home studies and extension lecture courses, 
 to which will be added the traveling library — this last a new 
 
22 
 
 idea originating at Storrs. The object of this department is to 
 provide home study along lines similar to those pursued at the 
 college. The course of study covers two years, with examina- 
 tion papers, an annual commencement day, and the granting of 
 certificates to all who satisfactorily complete the course of study 
 laid down. Text books are furnished by the college at cost, the 
 amount called for the first year being $2.40, and the second year 
 a little more. At present the text books used in the men’s 
 course for the first year are: “First Principles of Agriculture,” 
 by Voorhees; “Practical Farm Chemistry,” by Greiner; “Realm 
 of Nature,” Part 2, by Mill; “Story of the Plants,” by Allen; 
 and for the second year, “Principles of Fruit-Growing,” by 
 Bailey; or “Milk and its Products,” by Wing; “The Spraying 
 of Plants,” by Lodeman, or “The Dairy Herd,” U. S. Govern- 
 ment; “Realm of Nature,” Part 1, by Mill, and “The Story of 
 Bacteria,” by Conn. The books for the women’s course in the 
 first year are: “Home Floriculture,” by Rexford; “Easiest 
 Ways in Housekeeping and Cooking,” by Helen Campbell; 
 “Realm of Nature,” Part 2, by Mill; “Story of the Plants,” by 
 Allen ; and for the second year, “ Household Economics,” by 
 Helen Campbell, or “The Way We Did at Cooking School,” by 
 Virginia Reed ; “Health and How to Promote It,” by McSherry; 
 “Realm of Nature,” Part 1, by Mill, and “The Story of Germ 
 Life,” by Conn. The record of the first year’s operation of the * 
 extension department shows a total enrollment of two hundred 
 and sixteen members, of whom about seventy-five remain in the 
 second year. The membership for the second year is probably 
 larger than for the first. At the time of preparing this paper it 
 was too early to speak positively about that matter. The bulk 
 of the entries naturally come in midwinter. 
 
 The friends of Storrs Agricultural College are willing that it 
 shall be judged by this record without the making of any allow- 
 ances whatever. But the path so far trodden has not been a 
 plain and easy one. The college had before it no standard ex- 
 ample, of long success, suited to Connecticut conditions, after * 
 which it might easily pattern, wherefore it has had to blaze its 
 way, in some substantial part, both as to methods and studies. 
 
 Again, the world has an abundance of men fitted by educa- 
 tion, inherited temperament and training to fill the chairs of 
 
23 
 
 instruction in colleges of the ordinary type but this has not 
 been the fact with regard to agricultural colleges — comparatively 
 new as they are — which need not men of lesser attainments than 
 those fitted for ordinary college professorships but men of 
 greater attainments. To place an agricultural college on the 
 plane of full efficiency the special studies which its instructors 
 teach need to be based upon a broad foundation of general edu- 
 cation and culture. 
 
 Still again it is no secret that Storrs has been sorely ham- 
 pered for funds. Its struggles in the legislature and in the 
 courts are pretty well known and read of all men at least in 
 Connecticut. Specific and detailed reference thereto has been 
 omitted in this paper, not out of consideration for Storrs, but 
 out of consideration for others. 
 
 While — as we look at it — a good beginning has been made 
 at Storrs, its friends look to it for higher things than it has yet 
 accomplished. 
 
 The ideal these friends set for it comprehends the teaching 
 of the merely mechanical operations of agriculture and the 
 transaction of the business operations connected therewith, as a 
 matter of course, drill in the use of the English language till it 
 becomes an instrument of clear and facile expression ; and the 
 grounding of the students in such historical, economic and polit- 
 ical knowledge as tends to intelligent and virile citizenship. 
 On this as a basis it means to impart such a scientific knowledge 
 of agriculture, in the full and broad meaning of those words, 
 that its diploma will justly take full and equal rank with those 
 of the universities in indicating the training and energizing of 
 the perceptive and reasoning faculties — sending out its gradu- 
 ates not only to sweeten and dignify agriculture in its daily life 
 but fully equipped to wrest from nature by research, by thought 
 and by invention, secrets which shall arm agriculture with do- 
 minion over the germination and growth of plants and animals 
 akin in god-like power to man’s mastery over steam, electricity 
 and the Roentgen Ray. 
 
 The facts of the situation justify the farmers in standing as 
 one man for the progressive and continuous development of the 
 State Agricultural Colleges, secure in the position that what- 
 
24 
 
 ever of immediate good may come to agriculture the vaster 
 good will inure to the whole public and that in the not distant 
 future that public will thank the courage, the wisdom and the 
 foresight which persist to the attainment of full, abundant and 
 complete success. 
 
 GEER’S PRINT, 
 
 IARTFORD, CONN.