Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1876-05-12
THE SCIENTIFIC DEPA RTlLENTS
OF the University Of Vermont ana State
Agricultural College.

desire TO pursue a full course OF liberal
studies before entering on the work of spe-
cial preparation for profession, the Uni
versity has provided several courses which
are partly liberal and partly professional,
that is TO say, courses in which scientific
training and literary culture are combined
with technical instruction.
THE COURSE IN AGRICULTURE.
This course starring from basis of math-
ematics, which is necessarily fundamental
TO all science, follows the full circle OF tho
physical and experimental sciences, chem
istry, physics, botany, zlology, physiolo-
gy, meteorology, metallurgy and geology.
1t is especially full in the departments of
chemistry, botany, zoology and pbysolo-
gy. An amply equipped laboratory gives all
the needed facilities for the analysis of min
erals, soils, fertilizers, mineral waters &C.,
and glance at the synoptical liable will
show that provision is made for large
amount of practical work by the indvldu-
al student in this highly important branch.
In The studies which relate to vegetable and
animal life, the means are at hand for Civ
ing practical instruction in the laws and
conditions OF health and growth in plants
and animals, their diseases and enc
mics, the principles of hybrdization and
breeding, the processes of budding and
grating, the characteristics and cultivation
of the various cereals, forest trees, &C., &c.
Arrangements have been made by which
hereafter a series of lectures Oh veterinary
science and practice will be given as oflen
as may be needed. This course prepares
young men either for conducting the sci
entific experiments which a more en!ight-
ened agriculture is beginning TO require
and which will profitably occupy an in
creasing corps of men in the next genera
ton, or for entering upon the work of farm
ing with scientific knowledge which ex-
perience will soon elrn TO profitable ac-
count. With these professional studies in
the agricultural course are mingled studies
which qualify the man aud the citizen for
taking his part and enjoying his share of
| influence in social and public life, studies
which train him TO use his tongue and pen
effectively, studies in history, in political
economy, in the French and German Lam
guages without some knowledge Of which
man in our day, can scarcely be called
educated. For all this work, every part of
which seems essential to a thorough edu-
cation in the department of agriculture,
full course of four years is obviously short
enough, and we strongly advise against any
abridgement of it. We are willing, how.
ever, to meet the case Of those who, for suf-
ficient or insufficient reasons, choose to
content themselves with only part of the
full course. We especially encourage
young men who cannot leave the farm
during the working season to take up GER
tain studies and pursue them during sue
cessve winters, say from the first of No
vember TO the first of May. Such course
followed out for four or five winters would
acco mplsh much for the young farmer.
We invite correspondence on this subject
On one point it may be well TO say a
word. 1t has been asserted that farmers
sons, or young men studying agricultural
science, in University side by side with
others pursuing classical or literary stud
les, will be under sort of ban of inieriori-
ty. Nothing could be more absurd than
such notion, at least as regards this Uni
versity in which large number of the stu
dents are and have always been farmers
sons, and in which a democratic equality
prevails 10 degree unknown to The out
side world. If students are sometimes
conceited, it is towards those without, new
er toward those within.
1t is TO be noted, also, that we have not
here an Independent agricultural college
by the side of another institution, but one
University of which all the students are
III l,lA nf.,., fff Il
ferent departments often reciting in the
same classes, and all sharing its privileges
and honors according to their personal mer-
its without invidous distinctions.
1t is in reality great gain 10 the men of
the different callings 10 grow up together
in the same institution. They learn to respect
and cease to fear each other. The farmer
who has matched himself in the same
recitation room, in the same debating So
ciety, and on the same stage, with the law
yer or minister, feels himself TO be socially
and professionally his peer, possibly as an
individual his superior. At any rate this
personal contact amid variety of studies
is a mutual benefit.
THE COURSE IN GENERAL CHEMISTRY.
| LUIS couISe coNoIiuB Ilho all tuo Iuil
courses, four years, embraces along with
the studies for discipline and culture spok-
en- of above, chemistry in all its branches,
scientific and technical; analysis qualita-
tive and quantitative; sssaying of ores and
minerals; medical chemistry and toxicol-
ogy; and the various industrial applica-
tions of chemistry which scientific inven-
ton is multiplying every year. In the
prospective development OF the industrial
arts there is no field of enterprise more
promising than that which opens before a
literally trained chemist, that is, one who
is not only an expert in chemistry itself
but is master of the large group of sci
ences which border it on all sides, and in
conjunction with which it is 20 gain its fu-
ture triumphs, such as mineralogy, physi-
II.