The Indiana State sentinel., 1881-06-22
EDUCATED FARMERS.

pleted their studies and having received
their diplomas, are prepared, in so far as tn
schools can prepare them. for the battle o
life. 1t would be interesting to know tn,
choice of life work these educated younl
Americans have made, where they will be
found dozen years hence, and to note the
success that has been won. 1t would be in
teresting to know how many of them have
chosen law, how many medicine, how many
theology, how many mercantile pursuits,
how many the profession of teacher, and
how many agriculture. We hazard the
opinion that not one in a hundred of then
all will be found in the ranks of the farmers
of America. During their entire College
course we doubt if they have ever been told
half dozen times by their teachers thai
agriculture is respectable calling, requiring
as much learning as law, medicine or the
ology Here and there an Agricultural Col
lege devoteS some attention to agricultural
matters, but if those who take an interest IN
such statistics desire to have the facts. they
will ascertain that even graduates from such
institutions have learned to dislike agricul-
ture-farming-as a profession, and would
much prefer those professions where white
neckties and kid gloves are the recognized
passports to what is called good society
As a consequence, law, medicine and the
ology. indeed. almost anything is preferred
to agriculture by young men who
have received a collegiate education.
The Indiana State of Board of Agriculture
might, with eminent propriety, inquire into
the subject for the purpose of ascertaining
how many thoroughly educated farmers
there are in Indiana-how many graduates
of Indiana Colleges go from the College to
the farm. We predict that the number
wsuld be found so small as to create very
general surprise. 1t is barely possible that
a new era is dswning upon the country, and
that in the near future agriculture is to be
ranked among the learned professions. A
writer in the Social Science Monthly gives
the readers of that valuable publication an
interesting sketch of julius ADoLPH SrocK-
HARDT, who, "for nearly forty years, has
been engaged by researches, by lectures, by
writing and by the publishing of journals
in promoting and popularizing the science
of chemistry, especially in its applica-
tions to the culture of the
soil. In carrying science to
the people, and in presenting
it in such ways that the most learned can
not criticiSe, nor the mOstignOrant fail to un-
derstand, that everyone who reads or
listens shall wish to read or listen more, and
that the facts when cOmprehended may be
successfully and proftably applied to prac-
tice, few living men are his peers" julius
ADOLPH STocKHARDT is a thoroughly edu-
Gated agriculturaIist. His attainments are
of the highest order, giving him position
with LIEBIG, the father of agricultural
chemistry; with WOLFF, HENNEBERG, KNoP
NoBBE SToHMANN. KAHN and others in
Germany, with BoUssIRGAULT IN France,
and LAwEs and GILBERT in England. l
1874 SToCKHAEDT began a course of lectures
on agriculture, and ito those lectures may
be traced the beginning of the movement
which, eight years later, resulted in the es-
tabliShment at MOckern, Saxony, of the first
of the agricul tUr;ll experiment stations, OF
which there are now over 100 in Europe
and several in the United States and from
whose work, it may be said without exag-
geration, has emanated great part---per-
haps the greater part--of our accurate
knowledge of the principles of chemistry
and physioloy that underlie the night prac-
tice of agriculture
1t is to such men as julius ADoLPH
advance in agricultural science-to dignity
ing agriculture as a professiOn-and to the
educational elevation of the farming class.
STocKHARDT is the author of a textbook on
chemistry, in the preface of which he says:
Experiments must be the foundation of theory.
With them the beginner should learn to observe.
reflect. and judge: from them he should himself
unfold the general chemical relations and truths;
he should himself discover and in this way by
his own efforts. along with manual dexterity. ac-
quire an intellectual possession also. Every ex-
pertinent and every fact observed therein will
thus be to him a conquest, and will ineite to new
exertion.
''This book" says the writer in the Social
Science Monthly, ''abounds with simple ex-
periments to be made with apparatus which
StuuclRt may get anu hdnulc, anu ID YET
sufficient to illustrate, enforce, and impress
the truths that are taught, and, what is
better, to enable the learner to find the
highest inspiration in working out the
truths himself. LOW useful this system Of
instruction, as thus 5et forth by Stockhardt
has proved, may be inferred from the wide
circulation of the book as mentioned above
and the facts that sets of apparatus put up
to go with it were sent to all parts of Germa-
ny, to England and to Russia, and that a
depot for their sale was established in New
York"
In the United States, comparatively little
is known of agricultural chemistry, and
even that little is seldom if ever applied to
practice-as a result--as lands wear out new
farms are sought for. II farmer is able TO
give his son a collegiate education, that son
seldom returns to the farm. His College ed
ucation has completely untitled him for
farming. and the grandest profession Of this
or any other age is looked upon with a de-
gree of contempt, as suitable only for ig-
norant Doors. In this regard the education
of the period is sadly defective, and the
United States needs julius ADoLPH STocK.
HARDT to teach young men and old men the
magnitude Of the mistake they are making