man. reasoning; (2) to study the material for itself. For example: In the college the study of the roots and fleshy parts of plants is made from the standpoint of the plant; in the elementary school, they are studied as food products for The study of plant fibers is made, on the one hand, from the standpoint of plant tissue, and on the other, from that of their use to man. In physical science, the study of heat becomes in the college, with the laboratory work in fuels and combustion, a study of cause and effect; but in the grammar grades it is solely a consideration of the effects. The normal-college students want a battery for electrolysis and ionization, while the practice-school children want. a battery to furnish an electric circuit thru an electro-magnet or a telegraph instrument. If the public school is to aid in developing, in its great constituency, not only an interest in science, but a scientific spirit, there is no point in its whole system where highly equipped instructors are more needed than in the department of science in the normal college. Such instructors must be at once scientists and intelligent students of the interests and attitudes of mind in its different stages of progress. Not only must the laboratory work be thoro as such, but it must connect at all available points with everyday life, and in such a way as to awaken in the students an appreciation of law, of its harmonious working in the world of nature, and of its application in the inventions of man. THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THE SCHEME OF NATIONAL EDUCATION E. J. WICKSON, DEAN OF COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE AND DIRECTOR OF AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, CAL. Little more than ex-parte statement can be expected from one whose thought and work have lain wholly on one side of a subject, and with such consciousness of lack of breadth I am impelled to explain that my subject is not of my choosing and if I should overexalt the importance of the agricultural college and its relationship to the scheme of national education, may I escape censure because I neither offered to write nor chose the subject of the writing? I simply go to Nineveh and cry as commanded. And yet all who observe, even but casually or remotely, the progress of the world's effort at institutional education are aware that the various forms of applied knowledge commonly termed "practical education" are overwhelmingly popular; that governments and individuals give most freely for their promotion; that pupils flock to their dispensaries; and that statesmen of all civilized and being-civilized countries invoke them and count the degree of their popular attainment the measure of future national achievement. Probably every nation in the world, if called upon to propose a scheme of national education for a nation just about to be born, would lay out a curriculum of bird songs and flowers, mud pies and hammer strokes, wheels and levers, lathes and looms, dynamos and dynamite, atmospheric nitrate-making, and advanced commercial methods which might obscure even the three R's of blessed memory. These older nations for themselves are curbed in their educational reforms by vested rights and ancestral beliefs and thus prevented from realizing popular ideals in education too rapidly, but one can easily see what revolutions might occur were these wholesome restraints removed. With such a strong bent of the popular will toward the practical in education it is very clear that the next half-century will see great changes in educational methods and materials, if not in the very ideals of education. It, therefore, becomes worth while to endeavor to descry the relationship of what we have to that which we may attain; and this will be the line along which I shall pursue the agricultural college and its relationship to the scheme of national education. In the first place, I must ask that the term agricultural college be considered a synonym of agricultural instruction. Those institutions which have "agricultural college" as a distinctive name do not comprise or contain the agricultural instruction of the United States. There is only one pure college of Agriculture in the United States-that of Massachusetts. The reports of the United States Commissioner of Education endeavor to segregate and classify higher institutions into two categories: (a) "universities, colleges, and technological schools; " (b) "agricultural and mechanical colleges;" but it has to be stated that institutions of the land-grant class are also included in the statistical tables of the former class, so that after all the grouping is not by institutions, but by subjects of instruction, so far, at least, as technological undertakings are concerned. The Commissioner's Report for 1905 enumerates the following: Universities, colleges, and technical schools.. 619 44 Agricultural and mechanical colleges.. 66 As already stated, these figures do not represent numerical segregation because the first group includes most of the second and third. They are not available for strict classification by subject either, because on this basis many more of the first group should reappear in the second or third group; for example, Harvard University with its Bussey Institution and Yale University with its Sheffield School are both omitted from the agricultural group, to which they are conspicuously entitled to admi.sion. Many other higher institutions should also be claimed as agricultural. In discussing statistics of this sort Dr. True and Mr. Crosby in their pamphlet on The American System of Agricultural Education fitly remark: "Owing to the complicated organization of many of the institutions having courses in agriculture, . . . . it is impracticable to show by statistics with exactness the means and facilities for strictly agricultural education. The general statistics of the land-grant institutions may, however, serve to show with how great an enterprise, devoted chiefly to higher education along scientific lines and industrial lines, agriculture has been joined in permanent alliance, and to indicate in some measure how exten sive are the educational facilities at the command of the youth of the country who have sufficient intelligence, courage, and perseverance to follow out long and thoro courses of study in agriculture." The authors quoted evidently are apprehensive lest the statistics of the land-grant colleges should include too much for agriculture. I believe that, tho this may be true, they also exclude too much: but how excess and lack stand related I do not know. It may be important, however, to "show with how great an enterprise agriculture has been joined in permanent alliance," by citing the progress in value of institutional property, income, teachers, and pupils of the sixty-six agricultural and mechanical colleges. Surely "enterprise" is just the word for an effort which more than doubles its income and its opportunities in a decade. It would be pleasant to undertake analysis of these figures and to determine the causes operating strongly in the previous decades, which forced this wonderful development of an educational idea just at the hinging of the two centuries in which we are permitted to live and act. The limitation of this paper, however, precludes reference to causes and agencies. Two claims of significance must be presented: First, the gains in property and income of the agricultural and mechanical colleges are far greater than their proportion of the gains of all institutions for higher education, viz.: Total property valuation of 619 universities and colleges and schools of technology... 1900 $391,230,784 1905 $514,840,412 $331,905,172 $433,342,967 By subtraction then (because the 619 institutions include the 66): 30,115,146 Therefore, while 553 other institutions made a property gain in five years of $101,437,795, 66 agricultural colleges gained $22,172,326; or 11 per cent. of the institutions made 24 per cent. of the gain. In income the contrast is far more striking. The increase of the income of 553 institutions was $3,286,572, while the increase of income of the 66 was $5,264,917; or 11 per cent. of the institutions made about 61 per cent. of the total enhancement of revenue of the whole list of universities, colleges, and technological schools of the United States. This indicates most clearly the popularity of these institutions and as their support comes from governments and not from individuals, it argues generosity springing from popular appreciation and expectation which far surpasses private munificence. Second, it is significant also that the revenue of our agricultural colleges is increasing at a more rapid rate than their property valuations. This is a working-capital; something to work with, not to wait for. It is, of course, admitted that a vast endowment would be a surety of the future, and, therefore, earnestly to be desired, but the fact that such large sums of money are voted to be immediately used is really a very clear token of popular confidence and anticipation of immediate benefit. The actual endowment of these institutions is the wealth and outlook of the nation and of the states, than which there is nothing more productive and secure. The second division of the subject assigned to me is the "relationship of the agricultural college to the scheme of national education." Here, too, I must ask to speak of the subject of agriculture rather than of the college of agriculture as an institution. Fifty years ago the need of such institutions and their prospective relationships were popular subjects of discussion. Today we find them strongly established in every state and territory; generously supported, as figures already cited indicate; and doing such a commendable work in instruction and research that, in addition to other sources of increase, grants from the general government for both lines of effort have practically doubled within the last twenty years. They are thus deeply and permanently planted in the scheme of national education of the United States, and I confess I cannot discuss their relationship to such a scheme as tho they were apart from it or a thing still to be provided for it. The place of the higher institutions providing instruction in agriculture within the scheme of national education, and their duties and opportunities therein seem to me more fruitful subjects for contemplation. It is, I believe, particularly fortunate that instruction in agriculture has developed almost entirely in institutions which were also devoted to the promotion of other branches of learning. The success of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, with a purely agricultural curriculum, cannot be cited as pointing in another direction, because in such a small commonwealth, so well provided with other outfits for higher education, it is in effect, tho not in organic act, a department of agriculture. Such a result could not have been attained in a larger or a newer state without agencies for higher education. The association of agriculture with mechanic arts "without excluding other scientific and classical studies" in the original Morrill act of 1862 was so wise in its conception and grand in its results that it is hard to fully measure its influence, not only upon the general educational advancement of the country, but upon the recognition of agriculture as the greatest of applied sciences and a treasure-house of the best pedagogical materials. It seems to me unquestionable that the isolation of agriculture and mechanic arts from other studies, as might have been accomplished if the Morrill act had not ordered "liberal and practical education of the industrial classes," would have postponed indefinitely the intellectual and industrial advancement which the great central and western regions of the country have now attained. For the association of agriculture with broad culture has given us leaders and teachers of depth and grasp and its association with other technological studies and researches. has produced experts and engineers for all the various undertakings which the development of agriculture on a great American scale required. The elevation of agriculture to its proper place in economics, and of the farmer himself to industrial self-consciousness, both of which advantages may now be claimed to have been fairly attained, are due to the scientific method and scientific achievements which have illumined and advanced policies and practices. Thousands. of years of poetic and oratorical tributes to the nobility of agriculture accomplished less than a few decades of modern science and the wisdom of leading agriculture to the educational altar, where science awaited her approach, is grand to contemplate. "Wisdom is justified of her children." And now agriculture has risen to a capacity for wider service, not only to herself but to humanity. In the scheme of enriched and widely distributed technical education which the present state of the world demands, agriculture holds the position of leadership, and all educational undertakings for advancement of manufactures, commerce, transportation, are largely related to it or conditioned upon it. This is true, first, because of the fundamental character of agriculture as a world-supporting industry. Agriculture underlies all industries and draws upon all sciences. There is no work of man so deep and so broad. Agriculture leads all technical education in our national scheme because no other branch of it has such high value in its instructional outfit nor such breadth in its geographical distribution. It is true that the number of pupils is still incommensurate with the provision made for them, but, judging by recent increase, this will soon be changed. It is fortunate for the advancement of technical education generally, which both public and private generosity join in promoting, that agriculture is the sort of applied science and comprehensive art that it is. Its very nature constitutes it the best foundation for such advancement and the one upon which it is easiest to build. Its relation to many sciences and its universality as a pursuit of men are phases of its suitability for the educational issue which is now arising. There is reason to believe that a third term will henceforward be employed in describing educational branches which are in good standing. First came "letters," and for centuries it practically covered educational effort. A few decades ago "science," after a long struggle, arose to honorable recognition as educational material, and the formula was "letters and science." The third term which must ere long be added is "industry," and “letters, science, and industry" will be recognized as equally capable of pursuit toward an equally satisfactory and honorable educational end. Industry as a pedagogical quantity must, of course, be used in accordance with sound pedagogic principles and for true educational ends, which may, however, require increasing in number because an industrial point of view and purpose must be included as worth knowing, not only for use but for culture. The changes in present educational philosophies and curricula to include the item "industry,” and all that pertains to it in thought and action, will not prove so great and appalling |
