Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1881-03-04
HOsKLNs VS.. PRESIDENT BUCK
HAM
some Hard BIous az the Agricultural
College.


some Hard BIous az the Agricultural
College.
We make the following extract from re-
ply by T. II. Hoskins, of the Watohman and
State journal to an address by President
Buokham, of the state agricultural college,
entitled, "What kind Of an education shall
we give to those of our children who are 60
ing TO be farmers 2"
Just here we would like to ask DIR. Buck
ham whether, in giving all his boys collie
giate education, with the sciences left out, he
is not involving himself in the guilt of that
same one-sded ''caste" education-thRt tyr
amy and cruelty"-which he charges upon
the farmer who gives 10 his sons q limited
technical education in the direction of agri-
culture We cannot see why q course Of
high mathematics, classics and literature,
without the natural sciences, is not just as
narrow as an equally thorough course Of En-
glish and scientific schooling. A broad and
full culture would have to embrace both at
this stage of the worlds progress.
DIR. Buckham, in speaking of the value of
n collegiate course to farmer, makes no dis
tinction between the literary and the indus
trial college. He says II refuse TO allow
that the probability of his being farmer will
make any difference in the question. / can
see no good reason why ! should favor the
boy who is going to be lawyer or physician
over his brother who is going to be q farmer,
by sending one to college and not the other"
All right. But can the doctor see no differ
ence between sending the brother who is 60
ing 70 be q lawyer to q law-sehool, and his
brother who is going TO be a surgeon TO the
same SCHOOL, Will the same training answer
equally for both 1t may be admitted that,
were life long enough, both the surgeon and
4l,a MOULD ba oAv Nv,
both courses 1t is useful to a surgeon to be
acquainted with law, and for q lawyer to know
something about surgery. Many in each pro-
fession are more or less accomplished in this
way. But here are two boys in the same fam
lily, neither of them with the time or the mon
ey to spare for more than a single course.
One wishes to be a minister and the other a
farmer. Shall they both take the same course,
or shall one go to the school originally design
ed for training ministers, and the other TO a
school designed 10 furnish farmers with the
knowledge adapted to the work of the farm ?
No one knows better than DIR. Buckham that
the primary object and purpose of all our
New England colleges was to educate minis
tiers. Their entire equipment, even that on
the side of natural science, has been designed
and adapted to that end, and few have any
fault TO find with the results attained. They
are not theological schools, it is true, and
their various departments are more or less
available as means of instruction for the
ends of law, medicine, literature, or gentle
manly ease and general culture, but it is ut
terly absurd to say that they are equally adapt
ed to industrial ends.
DR.. Buckham is the official head of a lite
rary college, and is also the head of what is
nominally an industrial college. The attempt
has been made for now more than q dozen
years to have the two lie down together, and
it has succeeded-but only because one has
swallowed the other. An industrial college
with set of teachers exactly like those Of a
literary college-with not one single distinc-
lively industrial instructors in no honest
sense on industrial school at ALL This has
been our objection to IT, and that this objec-
tion is general is proved by the fact that the
university has never yet had any classes in
its so-called industrial department. Sufficient
time has elapsed for the thorough trial of an
experiment that many saw foreordained to
failure Has it not been sufficiently tried
Is it not failure And, beingR failure (say-
ing nothing about the past, and admitting all
concerned to have been honest and we'll
meaning in the attempt), is it not true that it
should be abandoned? Ought not the emf
nent, intelligent and pious citizens who pro-
cured the union of these two institutions to
say to the state "The experiment has fail
ed we cannot successfully conduct an indus
trial school at this place and in connection
with our college. Now, therefore, take back
these funds, and SO dispose of them as may
seem best to effect the designed purpose Of
their bestowal. AT any rate, zoe want neither
our hands nor our consciences to be any long
er burdened with this fruitless charge" This,
it seems to us, is the only possible honest way
to dispose of the matter