education of our youth, and the honor of the State. We mention it simply to say that it is our duty and desire to organize it, so far as we can, on a plan consonant, with the expectations of the people, and the interests of agriculture and education; to man it with competent officers; to make it a place where a thorough education can be easily obtained, and then to throw it into the hands of the citizens at large, and especially of the farmers, for encouragement and support. We shall shortly proceed to detail the plan upon which it is now to be conducted, and if it meets the approval of the people of the State, it is their business, not ours, to see that its halls are filled with students, and that the education it is prepared to give is spread abroad amongst the people. Farmers need a place for the education of their sons, where habits of industry shall be gained or at least preserved. Here they have such an one, and many are the evidences we receive of the good influence which daily work and responsibility, joined with the discipline of study, have had over the habits and principles of its students, leading them into the practice of method in their business as well as in their thinking; and causing them to make pleasures wait until duties are finished.

Farmers have needed a place where a sound education could be obtained-an Institution taking their sons at the state of advancement at which the common schools of the State are presumed to leave them: that is with a good knowledge of arithmetic, geography, grammar, reading, writing and spelling, but without a preparation in a high school or academy. It is found, however, that few present themselves, who do not need a review of some of the studies just mentioned. So the course at the College begins with a review of them, and passes rapidly on to the higher branches of academic education. The course is thorough, and peculiarly suited to the wants of practical men. It deals very largely with things and less with words. The applications of principles to the arts are taught. Means of illustra tion are supplied. Competent men have been found and placed in charge, who give their lives to the pursuit of particular

branches of study, and become proficients in them, and in imparting a knowledge of them. These things it was made the duty of the Board to provide. The people of the State must now take an interest in it as their own Institution, and help it forward in honor and usefulness.

The frequency of the question whether the Institution pays its way, leads us to add that we do not look upon the farm as a means of raising crops or of making money for the State. Like all other property, it should be managed with rigid economy, keeping always in view the object aimed at. But the farm and stock are primarily means of illustration in study. They are part of the apparatus of the Institution, and frequently and of design must portions of it be used where no returns except instruction can be looked for. This will be the case in many of the experiments, and in illustrations of the effects of differences of culture. It will be so in experiments on the adaptation of the climate to different products. If the poor methods are not tried alongside the good, if all is to be the best possible, where is the opportunity for comparison and illustration? The same will be true. in the care and feeding of stock. If the relative value of different roots, or a comparison of their value with that of hay, for instance, is to be made, some feeding must be tried which is not the most economical. And at all events the care with which experiments must be made-the continual weighing, and the preparation of food will, when done as here it should be done, go far to consume the profits of the best system. It is instruction which is the object of the College; the benefit to the State will come afterwards in the diffusion of correct views and practice.

But even in those operations which are designed to be conducted in the very best manner, there is less chance for realizing gain than would at first be supposed. There is no kind of work where the difference between skill and the lack of it does not appear. But at the College the work is to be done by learners. They are taken upon the field of labor in divisions

They are shown how to do the work, a good example is set them. But they, with their want of skill, are to do the work, and in this work acquire skill. It would be strange if that which is laid down to be done after a model manner, should not exhibit here and there the inexperience, and sometimes the want of faithfulness of the learner.

In making out a course of indoor study, the Board found the intention of the law sufficiently explicit. There has been some debate as to whether the course should not be strictly profes sional. The idea of a purely professional school of agriculture may be a fine one; but it is doubtful if such a thing could exist practically in this, or any State in the country. If the farmer's son is to be called from the farm and taught the practice merely of agriculture, without the principle on which it is grounded, and without a disciplinary education, he will advance the interests of agriculture and the honor of the State but little. He would have no power to recommend or to explain his practice to his neighbor. Unacquainted with the underlying principles of the rules he would follow, he would either readily abandon them for whimsical advice given by others, or doggedly pursue an unvarying path in spite of the continual advances of the science and practice of agriculture. On the other hand, if the College were candidate for the graduates of other colleges— for men of discipline, who had already acquired the general principles of science, it would stand candidate in vain. Such young men have been too long free from manual labor to think of returning to it again; and the constitution of our society and government, happily, does not warrant a school for the education of the mere overseers of others' labors. Whenever in this country, the project of a professional school of Farm Instruction has been entertained, it has been put to rest by the question: "where will it find students?" So inadequate is the appreciation of the value of such a college, that President Hitchcock, of Amherst, urges the State to take in hand the establishment of one. After thorough examination of foreign schools, and long attention to the subject, he has become con.

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vinced that such a college would bestow great benefits on community, and equally convinced that without governmental aid, one could not prosper. Objections, indeed, have gone still further. It is continually said that we cannot educate' young men and retain them in rural occupations. "At the outset," says Wilson Flagg, in his Prize Essay on Agricultural Education, we are met with the objection, that the surest means of causing a young man to leave.his paternal acres, and enter into other business is to give him a superior education." Praises of the farmer's home, and discussions of the extent of scientific principles involved in his occupation, and of the beauty and grandeur of nature's operations, such as are the theme of many an address, have little if any effect to prevent this. All such passages are eloquent because they are true, but the young, fond of life in the conflicts of society, enjoy such descriptions as they do the lovely Acadias of poetry and romance. States. men burdened with honors, merchants loaded with wealth,these frequently turn to rural occupations as to an earthly rest.

Shall, therefore, the farming class rest content with simple respectability and intelligence, such as they now possess? They are the governing class; their skill and labor make our wealth; their votes make our law-makers; to a great extent they are themselves onr legislators and officers; they are at any rate all citizens, responsible for our national laws and character. Both as farmers and citizens, education will de them the same service that it will any other class. It will bestow on them the same power of thought-give them the same control over the forces of nature-the same aptitude in varying means to circumstances and adapting them to ends. It will have the same tendency in them as in others to enlarge the understanding, to free from prejudice and exalt the moral worth.

Happily the Board found the law itself adapted to the condition of things. It bids us adopt a course of study which, while it has a thorough inweaving of professional and practical instruction, gives also the elements of a general scientific and

literary education. It recognizes the fact that the farmer must be educated on the farm, and pursue his studies together with daily toil—that his habits of labor, and his liking for farmers' duties may not be lost.

The Legislature in accepting the late grant of Congress for the establishment of colleges, and in bestowing the funds of the same as they shall be realized upon the Agricultural College, virtually widens the contemplated range of professional study so as to include practical instruction in other arts. Mining, engineering, machinery, etc., would find their way into the course of instruction based on the congressional grant. Especially is Military Tactics named as not to be excluded from such a course.

But the College has not as yet realized anything from the congressional grant, and the funds at the disposal of the Board were insufficient for the establishment of any professional course, or the securing of professional instruction aside from that which is agricultural and generally educational. Thorough military instruction would need a course of study in so many respects different from any other as to constitute virtually a new course. It would need its own corps of Professors, and means of illustration. All this the College is not in a condition to attempt at present. It was thought, however, that some elementary instruction might and should be given. This consists of drill, and a course of lectures on Fortifications and Field operations, and another on Military Hygiene.

The course of study, therefore, stands as follows:

PREPARATORY CLASS.

First Half Year.-Arithmetic, Descriptive Geography, English Grammar.

Second Half Year.-Algebra, Natural Philosophy, Composition.

COLLEGE COURSE-FRESHMAN CLASS.

First Half Year.-Algebra, Geology, Geometry, Book-keeping. Second Half Year.-Trigonometry, Surveying, Entomology, Principles of Stock-breeding, History.