Rocky Mountain husbandman. [volume] (Diamond City, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1875-12-30

only be improved and perfected by the care
tul application of scientific principles. The
agriculture of the world needed a new study.
and more perfect mastery of its principles,
and more intelligent husbandry was de-
manded by the multiplying wants of the
civilized world.
The conclusion was neither untimely nor
unreasonable that educational forces and in
stitutions might be called in to aid in this
needfltl work. Schools had already done
much for the so-called, and often miscalled.
learned professions. They had improved
both the theories and practice of law, medi-
cine and theology. In engineering, archi-
lecture, mining, and other useful and fine
arts, education has been successfully invoked.
and had been found SO useful and powerful
an aid to national progress as to awaken the
attention and command the support of en-
lightened and rival governments. 1t was
neither unWise nor unreasonable to suppose
that this broadest and. at bottom, most sci
entitic of the industrial arts might success
fully seek aid from schools of learning Or
ganiZed in its interest.
1t is not strange that amid so much aeita-
ton, and such ardent advocacy, many exag-
gerated expectations should have been form
Interpretations sometimes unreasonable
even to absurdity, often contradictory, and
almost always impatient of time and urgent
for immediate fruitage. Nor is it strange
that these expectations have been so fre-
quently disappointed, and that being dis
appointed, they have led many to the CON
clusion that agricultural colleges have prov
ed a failure. They have simply failed to
meet some of these extravagant and unwise
expectations. Tried by fair test they have,
in many cases, attained remarkable sue
cess.
Allow me to mention some Of these expec-
tations:
/. The farming population, groaning undr
burdens and disabilities, and looking in all
directions for the causes and for the relief.
easily saw that the superior education and
intelligence of those whom they regard as
their oppressors gave them an undue advan-
tage, and rightly enough concluded that ag-
ricultural colleges would increase the inteli-
gence of farmers, and give to them educated
and powerful leaders, just as the law schools
had made lawyers learned. And this expec-
hoped. Education diffuses itself slowly.
2. Others were vexed to see all the COL
lege-bred sons Of farmers land the farmers
boys have gone to college as often as those
Of any other class,) refusing to return to
their farms, but making their way to the
cities and entering professional life or trade,
and they wished for colleges for farmers
children which should make them learned and
leave them farmers. 1t was not agricultu-
raj colleges, but colleges for agriculturists,
which they wanted. Not colleges devoted
to agricultural science, but schools for agri-
cultural childreh
The excellent president of aState agricul-
tural society told me he did not ask the ag-
ricultural colleges to teach agriculture, but
he wanted place to send his boys where he
could getthem educated without being spoil
ed for the farm. The evil, if evil it be, he
complained of, is deeper and nearer home
than he thought. Farmers sons go to the
law and other professions full frequently
with their ambitious fathers or mothers adj
vice. "John is too smart to remain a mere
farmer; let us send him to college and make
a lawyer and gentleman of him. say they.
3. Others had observed the ignorant and
unbusinesslke way in which too many farm
ers manage their farms and affairs-the
needless and ruinous waste of the fertility