New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-02-18
NETWORK DAILY TRIBUNE WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY IS, 1874

districts and that everybody ats up nights
wearing their eyes out to read. it liz hardly
necessary. Some of his statements are rs re-
markablc for truth and beauty and freshness and
originality as any of Watts's Hymns. OF which,
we repeat, the Commissioner of Agriculture
is not the author. The picture which he
paints Of the college student returning home
"a graduate in science after an absence OF
four years" is one of the most touching
things in the literature of the Departments.
4" He looks around in vain,1 this graduate in
science does. al to find some congcnial spirit
"who can appreciate the knowledge that he
has gained some object upon which be can
spend happy thought and hour" That is
what happens to graduate iii science. Moth
ing could be more graphic. 1t would bring
tears to an onion. Bat Mr. Watts does
not stop here. He harrows up the reader with
the story of his contempt for I" the dull pod-
ding OF country life,n and tells how he rs
| 4" thus driven to the nearest country town,
"whcre he may meet spirits more congenn
"and employment, to him. les irksomc whore
"he may learn TO be merchants clerk an
indifferent doctor q dull lawyer, or inehi
" cient preacher, and, pegchance be thrown
| INTO bHe teiDptiIlOuS VI flCo anu
"ance, and thus the effort Of fond parent
"to educate his son results not only in the
Gloss of the hardly learned means Of his edu-
"cation, but the son himself" No doubt
many Congressman has read tins thrilling
! passage with feeling of thankfulncss that
| kind Providence never exposed him to the
temptations of a graduate in science"
Over against this, with cOnsummate art, the
| Commissioner sets the advantages Of aQ agri-
cultural education at an agricultural col
| lege, such IA he was President of till
called to the higher and more responsible
| duties of Withholding from Congress the views
| of Mr.. Marsh on irrigation, and distributing
worms and weevls to a suffering people. He
feelinsly relates how the boy whose mind has
been cultivated i'll an agricultural college
returns after graduation TO a home where
call ia cOngenal around him, and where
! "fath6r, brothers, and sisters delight to listen
"when he talks of the mathematical and me-
"chanical structure of the plOw, and why it
SIS so formed y and how be SIS listened to
"with degree Of interest which makes him
feel that his study has not been i'll vain, but
"that he has grown to the stature OF man,
"whO is about to take his placein the march OF
agricultural progress and afford an example
" to those around him of the value of agricul
" tural SCIENCE And yet he says he does not
| mean to "detract in the slightest degree from
" the high estimate i'll which purely lit
erary institutions of the country are so
Justly held.n This is magnanimOus on his
| part, but it can hardly be expected that any
right-minded man, after reading this compar-
ison of the agricultural with the literary in
| sttution will send his son to encounter the
| temptations so wildly set forth 10 become
" an Indifferent Doctor dull lawyer, or inef-
" icient preacher"
The Monthly Report abOunds in such fine
passages, and makes pamphlet Of seventy
pages It seems pity that there should be
only $4,000 copies of it printed; but then there
are POO 900 copies of the Annual Report, which
| is much more so than the monthly and so full
| of interesting information and woOd-cuts that
| children cry for it. Such q department,
| distributing worms and weevils and wood-cuts
to the people and bouquets to Congress and
the Cabinet, would not have lacked the moral
support of the people in Withholding Mr..
Marsh's views on irrigation from the Senate as
well as the House. But now that he has given
I'D the paper-what was it all abOutf
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