The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1886-10-13
AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES.

insists that tRe faE1ners OF this
State should have An agricultural
college in which, their boys who
intend to follow the calling of the
farmer may be educated and
trained for that calling. Other States
North and South have such colleges,
but North Carolina has none, not
withstanding the fact that $500 a
year, interest on the land scrip do
mated by Congress, in 1862, with the
express condition Of establishing
agricultural and mechanical colleges,
is being used by the trustees of the
State University, in violation of the
spirit and letter of the act by which
the donation was made.
Dr.. Kemp P. Battle, President of
the University, in his address before
the students of the South Carolina
University, on June 23rd last, indi-
rectly defends this misrepresentation
of this money by saying that Con
gress never intended the establish
ment of agricultural and mechanical
colleges proper, because the act pro-
hibited the use of the money in pur-
chasing sites, erecting buildings, &c.
Congress presumed that every State
| which accepted this donation would
have State pride enough to furnish
the sites and buildings, leaving the
fund donated as a fund to pay the
current expenses of such institutions
and keep them up without State aid
when once established. The Doctor
does not seem to have a very accu-
rate idea of what an agricultural
college is although he has one be-
tween the}cOvers of his University
catalogue, (Which found its way there
at a very late day. when he says as
he does in this address, speaking of
a "broad and liberal education,"
Fright here is the farmers great
danger. If he shall content himself
with cheap smattering of learning,
if under the Juror for industrial
training he su%bordinates the educa-
ton OF the head to that of the hand,
he is condemning himself to that
inferiority which [ am so earnestly
begging him to throw off" He be-
lieves in abroad culture" for the
farmer. SO do we. We believe in
broad culture for everybody that
can get it. But we don't believe
with DR.. Battle that if the farmer
can't have broad culture, University
training such as he proposes to give
him, he should not have any. That's
what the Doctors meaning is if he
means anything. The farmers son
cannot 60 through a course at the
University, mastering the dead and
living languages, mathematics, po-
lite literature and all the ologies
taught in a University, therefore he
should not have a "cheap smat-
!tering of learning which would con-
denim him to i~nferiority." This Dor
ders on the amusing, although it
was not intended to be amusing.
But let us see. Do these agricultural
colleges afford only a cheap smat-
tering of learning that sui orlinates
the head to the hand? The agricul-
tural college of Mississippi, support
ed by this fund which DR.. Bate
says was not intended for agricul-
tural or industrial colleges, numbers
four hundred students. embracing
the SONS of the wealthiest and best
farmers of Mississippi, who will com
pare in intelligence and acquire
ments with the students Of any col
lege in that or other States. It is a
model school in all respects. The
education of the head is not subordi-
mated to the education of the hand,
ibut they 60 together and the result
is four hundred young men, a fair
PROPORTION Of whom leave these
halls and grounds annually, equipped
for the active industries Of life, and
ready to. take their part. The agri-
cultural and industrial college of
Virginia is another; the college at
Auburn, Alabama, is another; the
agricultural college Of Michigan an
other, and Of Kansas another, with
still others, where the farmers sons
are educated with an especial view
to training them for the farm, and
where that horror of a "smattering
of learning" does not seem to
frighten folks as it frightens DR..
Battle. But perhaps they do not
take as much interest in the farmer
as DR.. Battle does, who insists on
his having a "broad and liberal cul-
ture" to avoid inferiority, or none