The comet. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1877-1882, 1881-02-05
The MI sissippi Agricultural d Me-
chanIcaI College mt starkvilIe.
by DANIEL DENNETT.
From the Southern Lise-stock Journal

From the Southern Ii se-s took Journal
| have watched with great Interest
and deep anxiety, the movements o
the Agricultural d Mechanical College
at Starkville, since it started last fall
to Ego alone" 1t seems to me that
it has made good start. If ! am not
badly deceived, true and competent
meE, and true friends of Mississippi
of the boys of Mississippi, control
the destinies of the Col ege, and the
best men in the State will give them
"aid and comfort" If the whole
press of the State would wheel into
| Inc and give this College and the ia-
dustries of the State cordial support,
who can estimate the blessings that
such an influence might secure for
succeeding generations
Editors too often make random at
tacks upon new progressive or benev-
olent and patriotic movements, upon
mere flying reports, originating in
prejudice or ignorance. 1t Is hoped
that even the weakest editors in Miss
issippi will not indulge in articles
originating in any such a spirit. 1t
is hundred times easier to destroy
than to build up. A child, or tramp,
may fire an elegant dwelling, but it
takes ski !, labor and capital to build
one.
THE BOYS OF MISSISSIPPI.
Where do the boys of Mississippi,
twenty or more thousand of them who
ought TO be farmers, now learn how to
till the soil and manage farm?-
Look across this great State-in i'm
s.,if al "a. al
tations in the State, and see where
and how those boys are now trained
for future farmers. Where are our
model farms TO show boys the beauty
of agriculture, and the noble avocation
of IA farmer? Even some, or most of
our most successful farmers do not
teach the boys agriculture they send
them to colleges to make lawyers or
doctors of them, or to prepare them to
fill political offices. The poorest and
most ignorant farmers are too poor to
make anything but farmers of their
SONS. And what valuable facts in ag-
riculture does an ignorant farmer, who
takes no agricultural or other news
paper, and reads no books, impart to
his SONS? The farmer who has moth
ing to eat but bread and portland
these often purchased of the merchant
whose cattle starve to death, or
shiver and freeze for want Of u shed,
teaches his boys but little besides error
His boys are disgusted with such
farming they take no more pride or
pleasure in agriculture than one takes
in working out his road TAX.
Such boys get their lessons on farms
that are often hideous 10 the eye and
full of leaks, where waste, and errors
aud blunders, often mixed with idle
ness and H'doctored VIII skey,p keep
the farmer ,miserably poor. How
many schools of this kind have we in
Mississippi where boys are taught bad
farming, or float into bad farming?
THE sTARKvILLE COLLEGE A PRESS
ING NECESSITY.
Mississippi has needed an Agricul-
turaI and Mechanical College more
than anything else. 1t had become
an indispensable necessity. Idleness
and whiskey were utterly running
thousands of our young men. Where
could the young men go TO get the
knowledge they needed to make
true men of them? They needed an
Institution where they could learn
how to work intelligently, and learn
how to make a living, and how to
support family by honest industry.
They needed associates and teachers
that consider labor honorable, and
agriculture one of the noblest of call
have it at Starkville.
May Heaven smile upon 1t, and good
men and the Press bid it "God speed"