selves taking a seat upon these Boards and personally doing what we can to turn the course of instruction in a practical direction. No man who neglects such an opportunity ought to talk of his interest in the promotion of technical education.

There is another officer who could if he would, do more than all others to effect this change, and that is the one who generally under one name or another, superintends the public instruction of the State. He is in direct official relations with all the public schools. He is supposed to know what the teachers are doing, and it is his duty to report to the Legislature their condition and to recommend such improvements as he may think desirable. His influence over the schools therefore, could be made very great, and the Legislature must at least listen to him. Any State in which he could be brought to feel the importance of greater attention to popluar education would have great advantages in this movement. These steps are all important and indeed are all essential to the complete success of the plan. They all lead to the last measure without which nothing can be done, the influencing the Legislature to make appropriations and impose the consequent taxes for technical education. If the opinion of the public could be enlightened there would be no difficulty on this point.— The legislator does not run counter to the expressed wishes of his constituents. We too may have something to say about the appointment of our legislators.

On the other hand valuable reforms may be advantageously inaugurated in the State Senate or Assembly, and to these we should methodically and persistently apply until we succeed. Petitions ably setting forth the exertions of foreign countries to educate the industrial classes for their vocations, and the danger of our falling behind, the pecuniary value of such education to the State, the greater value in elevation of character, and the necessity of action by the State, would if proper pressure were brought to bear, have to be reported on by the Committes on Education. "Technical education for the industrial classes" would be a popular cause. Discussions could only tend to spread the facts and make the truth to be felt. Whatever the immediate result the cause would gain.— It could lose nothing by defeat except time. Ultimately it must prevail and in this faith the attempt should be repeated until the success come.No one can doubt that under a government by the people for the people, education of the children of the industrial classes can be secured if persistently demanded The only danger is that perseverance would be followed by too exclusive attention to industrial education, and that our civilization might become too technical and material.

With the Legislature favorable to grants for technical education there would be no difficulty as to the objects of appropriation. These might be made in aid of the District and the Graded schools in proportion to the number of hours devoted to Scientific studies; in aid of scientific education in the Normal schools; of non-sectarian colleges to support professorships of technical branches; for the creation of scholarships for graduates proficient in the same. They might increase the pay of teachers in all public schools, support evening schools, and make competition in scientific attainment honorable and profitable. The present organization

offers abundant opportunities, if the Legislature can be brought to a desire to use them. The result would be a quiet revolution in education, a steady advance of our country in every department, and the rapid progress of our countrymen and country women towards competence, and means of development and happiness.

No one is more aware than the writer that there is nothing new in what has here been stated, and that it may well seem an abuse of time and opportunity to occupy such an audience with such common plans.His only apology is his conviction that the end to be accomplished is of incalculable importance to the happiness of our country, and that the great danger of missing it lies in seeking extraordinary means instead of using those which are at hand.

At the conclusion of Prof. RUSSEL'S paper the subject was opened for discussion of which the following is the substance.

Mr. ABORN:-I know nothing of the writer, but it is evident that he knows little of what is now being done in the common schools. Conscientious teachers can cram the time full with the studies already there. Besides that the manner of teaching is of more importance than to cram in a dozen studies at once. Again, what good would it do to change teachers when the kind wanted cannot be got at all or at any price? Furthermore I do not think the State can give a technical education even with a mint of money. There must first be a demand for this kind of education, whereas it is now held in positive disrespect by those who most need it. Finally, the paper does not provide time for the boy to learn a trade. This is necessary and requires from four to eight years. The mechanic must be made. He must be made in the day time, at the bench, and at that period or age when his services are not so valuable. I would not drive the boy out of school to a trade, but at the age of fourteen or fifteen years, when he usually goes to work at a trade I would open an evening school for him where he might be taught drawing and the elements of chemistry, natural philosophy and mechanics, and so far as practicable the application of these sciences to his work. I would give him the benefit of this school six months in the year for three years. Thus we should get our skilled practical mechanic making use of his scientific studies and showing their advantages to others.

Prof. MILES:-There are one or two points I would like to present in relation to this subject. The first is the increase of studies in the common school. Some students come to our college representing that they have studied some of the sciences in addition to the common branches, as arithmetic, grammar, geography, &c. These we find almost always deficient in the common branches as compared with those who have pursued only the common branches. The second point is that farmers and mechanics do not understand the designs and purposes of industrial colleges, but have some false and preposterous idea of what they are trying to do. The teachers in these institutions are somewhat to blame, because they have themselves no clear idea of what they are trying to do, or of what is

possible to do or of what will be of any use if accomplished. The third point is that money cannot secure teachers for technical instruction, for they are not to be found. It is more difficult to find teachers for these positions than for any other. As well as successful teachers they must be persons of executive ability. It is easy to find those who succeed either in the class-room or the field or workshop, but it is rarely that one is found qualified for both.

Prof. HAMILTON :-To cross the sea we must have timber to build ships and likewise in industrial education we must have students. This is where we fail. Vocations paying well will have their workers fitted to engage in them. The industrial arts do not pay sufficiently well to justify the extra expense of getting the education, and it seems to me that until we can offer remunerative positions to our graduates it is useless to expect a very large attendance of students in our industrial colleges.

Pres. FOLWELL, of University of Minnesota :-The agricultural colleges are not designed to teach labor. They are not adequate to this purpose, nor is it required. As a laborer the American is now ahead of all others and needs no greater proficiency but we do need more intelligent directions and superintendents. The time is also coming when in certain branches the American laborer will come into competetion with the European. Then we shall want to educate the laborer for his special trade, and it will be done not in colleges but in industrial schools located near the centre of these special industries, as is even now the case in Europe. Mrs. H. M. NASH:-I also frequently find that pupils know many things indifferently and none well and think it comes from over-crowding the courses, trying to teach too many things. Think perhaps the plan of Mr. ABORN may be a good one or else there should be ungraded schools for such as can attend school only irregularly and for a short time in which they can pursue those studies which will do them most good. Such pupils meet with very great discouragements in the graded schools and soon quit them entirely. This question is one needing attention as shown by the numerous tramps and criminals seen in some parts of our country. Pres. FOLWELL:-We have had such an ungraded school in operation in Minneapolis for a year past and it works well.

This discussion having closed Prof. E. M. PENDLETON, University of Georgia read his paper on

WHAT ARE THE LEGITIMATE DUTIES OF AN AGRICUL

TURAL PROFESSOR ?

Mr. President and Gentlemen.--In discussing the legitimate duties of an Agricultural Professor, we lay down this postulate: Agriculture should be taught as a science. Other propositions which grow out of this will be considered in connection with it, such as its negative, Agriculture should not be taught as an art: and the Agricultural Professor should be an experimentalist, that he may substantiate doubtful truths and develop others. from the arcana of nature.

We shall endeavor in the outset to find out, if possible, what the Congress of the United States expected of the Agricultural Colleges as established by their munificent donation of public lands, estimated to be worth six millions of dollars. If we can ascertain the reasons which influenced them, we have a foundation on which to build the logic of this question. Without entering into particulars, we simply state a few facts by which the distinguished gentleman from Vermont, who introduced the bill, succeeded in convincing Congress that these institutions were a necessity of the times. He showed from the statistics of the country that in one single decade (from 1840 to 1850) the wheat crop of the six New-England States had fallen off about 100 per cent and the potato crop about 60 per cent. That in the Southern and Western wheat-growing States, the decrease had been about the same as in New England; while the wheat crop in the State of New York from 1845 to 1860 had dwindled from thirteen to six millions of bushels. And so of the tobacco crop of Virginia, and the cotton crop of the Southern States. He further showed that as a consequence of this general deterioration of the soils of the country, while its population had increased 35 per cent in a decade, the meat-producing animals had only increased 20 per cent. The honorable gentleman could easily have shown that all of this deterioration was still going on under the most approved methods of culture where the progress of ages had culminated in the perfection of the art. Then the restoration of our soils to their primal fertility was the underlying object of the whole scheme; and, growing out of this as a necessary result, an increase of all the agricultural products of the country, to feed and clothe its inhabitants, and supply a surplus for the increasing demands of the old world.

The legitimate inference from these facts is that agriculture should be taught as a science, not as an art. Can we suppose for a moment that Congress intended to have laborers trained in these institutions to work on farms, or to be skilled in the mere art of agriculture, so that they should labor themselves or direct the labor of others? Far from it. Their object was to develop the first minds in the land as scientific agriculturists, who could do for America what Liebig had done for Germany, Boussingault for France, and Lawes for England. Yea much more than this, they wanted men educated here who could take up Agricultural Science where these men left it, and add to it from year to year by induction, until it occupied the pre-eminent position to which it is entitled in the eyes of the scientific world. In order to this, the Professor of Agriculture must not be a mere teacher, but an experimentalist also, as the science which he proposes to teach is inchoate, and there is much more to learn of it than there is to teach. We have but entered within the vestibule of this magnificent temple, and he who simply proposes to gather up the little taught by others and add nothing himself to the great store-house of human knowledge, is unworthy the position he occupies.

The truth is, the great mass of men who practice the Art of Agriculture are empirics and always will be. They only attempt to do what they see others succeed in doing, without reference to the whys and wherefores of the matter. Their knowledge is empirical, not scientific. The development of one truth by a scientist will, when applied by a few leading

minds, be adopted by the practical men of the country, who will not know or care to know anything of the science that is in it. Hence the prime object of our Agricultural Colleges should be to develop and elucidate science, which the masses may apply empirically; and not to teach men to be practitioners of the Art, much less to attempt the impossibility of making them all scientists.

In order to accomplish these great ends, means must be discovered by which our soils may not only be cultivated without exhaustion, but restored to their former fertility, and even beyond it; and that by a process which would at the same time remunerate those who cultivate them. The projectors of this scheme foresaw that simple art, however skilled, could never work out this great problem; that nothing but science could do it, under a combination of gifted minds, with all the aids afforded by liberal endowments to institutions set apart for this specific purpose. Then we hesitate not to affirm that whenever these institutions, or any of the Professors connected with them, magnify other studies to the detriment of these, or go outside of this curriculum for their teaching, they are outside the pale of their legitimate duties, and fail to compass the ends intended by the munificent donation of Congress. But how are we to learn and develop the truths of this complex science so as to be able to teach them to others? This can only be done by the establishment of experimental stations in connection with our Agricultural Colleges. How else could Agricultural Science be elucidated? How else could our soils be improved so as to produce remunerative crops? True, if we master what has been learned at the experimental stations in Europe, we can teach much of Agricultural Science in the abstract, and much that bears indirectly on our soils, climate, and products; but what would the Agricultural Professor in Georgia know about the habitudes of the cotton plant, the soils adapted to it, the fertilizers requisite for it, the diseases to which it is subject, or anything else about it of importance to the planter from the experimental stations of England or Germany? And so of many different products in every section of the country.

In order to accomplish these great results then, the Agricultural Professor has to be a student as well as a teacher, and we take it that the first great duty devolving upon him is to acquaint himself, by all the means in his power, with the soils, geological formations, agricultural products, and climatology of the State in which he is called to teach agriculture. For, however much he may be learned in the truths which apply to Agricultural Science, there is much that immediately surrounds him that general science can never teach.

But there is a great difference between an experimental farm intended to elucidate Agricultural Science, and a model farm to teach the appliances of the Agricultural Art through the labor of students. Our settled conviction is, that manual labor is not and cannot be made a legitimate part of a college course. The art of agriculture is very simple and may be learned much better by apprenticeship than in any other way. We want intellectual men taught at our colleges to be learned agriculturists, who will be able to tell others what to do, not to be mere day laborers themselves. Young men are not sent to military schools to learn to drill