The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1889-04-04
GEN. S. D. LEES PAPERS.
AGRICULTURAL AND MEcHANI.
CAL COLLEGES.
Answers TO Some OF the Objections
Urged Against the College-Tbe Unit
versify and A. and N. Cannot
Cope I'm Competition,
ARTICLE VI.

other objections urged against the Col
lege.
6. 1t Is claimed the graduates don't
go on the farm. Although such Col
ieges are intended to bias students in
favor of agriculture, still it was not
intended rs an iron-clad rule The law
says, Ito promote the liberal and prac-
teal education of the industrial classes
in the several pursuits and professions
of life" If only farmer boys are de-
prived of the privilege of selecting life
pursuit, we might not have had fifteen
out of twenty-one of our Presidents,
who were the sons of farmers, working
small farms, or farmers. The law in.
tended equal latitude of choice. 1t is a
fact of statistics, that only one and one
half per cent of the graduates of
literary colleges so to the farm. There
are seventy-fve living graduates of this
College; OF this number, ten are farm
ing, eleven more are farming and also
engaged in other pursuits, three are
horticulturists. three are assistants ut
Agricultural Experiment Stations, one
is dairyman, six are professors or
teachers of agriculture-making forty
six per cent of graduates engaged in
farming or teaching agriculture. Others
are engineers, eleven are teachers,
balance physicians, lawyers. merchants,
ministers, etc. We should bear in mind,
also, that farming is greatly depressed.
and this showing is in face of statistics,
showing that the half of the population
not farming, in the last twenty, years,
have made over five hundred PER cent
more money than those engaged in
agriculture. 1t will take time, educa-
ton and patience to restore TO the
farmers equal advantages. which they
have lost by their indifference to educa-
ton, while the other classes have gotten
so far ahead of them in worldly pros,
perity and wealth,
z. 1t is claimed that too much money
is spent in Oktibbeha county. The one
College could not have been located in
seventy-four counties in the State.
s. 1t is claimed that the denomina-
tional Colleges and Normal Colleges
afford cheaper education. All these
institutions are most excellent in doing
good educational work. The facts show
they are not cheaper; besides they are
colleges giving classical and general
education, not education ITO benefit
agriculture and the mechanic arts" as
the A. and NJ College is required to
give by law. The comparison. then, is
not fair one. No private institution
can afford the outfit, apparatus, ETC.,
which the State gives her colleges.
9. 1t is claimed that too much money
is given the colleges, aud too little to
the common schools. 1t is an incon-
trovert!ble fact, sustained by ex-
perience and statistics, that schools
in which the elementary studies are to
be taught, can exist and accomplish
their work successfully only when Col
leges and Universities exist as cduca-
tional standards and as sources of
stimulating, shaping and elevating in
huences in all the lower grades of
educational work" The States of the
Union which have the most perfect
common school svG.. ms have the most
and best equipped Colleges AID Uni
VerSities; sending out good teachers to
the common schools. Mississippi gives
her Colleges about $95, 900 year, and
the common schools about $1,000, 900.
1t is claimed that only few boys can
attend the A. and NJ. College. This is
true also of the University and all Col
leges. The mass of boys must 60 to
the common schools. Enough. how
ever, can go to lead the farmers. At
Oxford, for instance, the law class does
not average twenty young men. Yet
the lawyers lead in the law maxim in
dustr!al and social reforms. There are
law schools in every State, and the
lawyers are very small per cent of the
entire population of the United States.
Yet they are leaders in every movement
of the people. They see the necessity
of technical schoo! in Mississippi and
everywhere to teach law. They believe
in special training, and they have been
friends of this College in all its troubles.
The farmers cannot expect to better
their condition till they educate them
selves as other classes. When they do
this they may expect to prosper and
be able to compete with them.
1t is claimed that the farm makes no
money. 1t is fact that it has used
no part of the appro ration voted by
the Legislature for over four years ex-
cept student labor. The fact that with
less money. the College educates one
third more students than attends the
University. and also pays $1,000 an
nually to students for their labor.
should be a sufficient answer to this OBJ
lection.
! might answer as many more OBJ
jections. There is no getting around
the fact so we'll established by stats
tics and observation, that the influence
of the farming classes is waning in
making laws and in ali public affairs.
As their wealth decreases, their in-
fluence also decreases. In n"arlv al
cauntyiaS thu Stains of tha fariniOU