The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1901-06-18
THE M COLLEGE.

Some time ago Wallace's Farmer,
perhaps the ablest agricultural paper
published west of the Mississippi,
printed under the above heading a
very thoughtful editorial upon agrl7
cultural education. Just at this
time when the vicious tendency re-
ferred to seems to have been COM
pletely Obliterated from our N. G. A.
and M. College, this editorial will
emphasize the Importance of making
permanent this good work. Incl
dentally, too, DR.. Wallace calls at
tention to an erroneous idea regard
ing the nature of agricultural educa
ton, or scientific agricultural educa-
tion, if you please. Hence we make
nc apology for reproducing in full
herewith DR.. Wallace's article. He
says:
When a man has at heart the in
terests of the farm and the interests
of his country, which are bound up
with the farm, the use that has been
made of the mupifcent endowments
of the National Government to agri-
cultural colleges seems to him a mat
ter of amazement and profound re-
greet. The land grant given to every
college in the United States has been.
largely frittered away, and, even
when used properly by locating these
virgin lands and holding them for a
market or for rent, the income has!
been largely devoted to other pur-
poses not intended by the authors of
the legislation. The usual course
has been to endOw institutions in
which agriculture has had but little
place and to devote it to a line of
education eminently proper in a
State University or in an ordinary
college, but of little or no value to.
the boy or girl whose life is to be on
the farm. This magnificent endow-
ment has seldom been devoted to the
purpose for which it was intended
until the farmers of the State real
ized that they were being robbed of
their birthright and by sheer force
wrested it from those who were mis-
apprOpriating the funds. By misap-
propriating it we do not mean appro-
priating it to their personal use, but
to lines of education intended
by the founder of these endOwments.
Even where the State Universities
fail to get hold of the appropriations
land agricultural colleges were estab
|lished, the aim seems to have been.
TO make these colleges after the pat
tern of the universities and thus
educate farmers children away from
the farms instead of toward the
farms. Such was the course of the
Iowa College until a few years ago.,
when the farmers, by placing Score
|tary Wilson at the head, made it to-
IA very large extent a typical agricul
-tural college. Our friends in I'LL
InOis and Nebraska have the same
fight on their hands now, and every
Iowa farmer and every man inter
ested in agriculture will wish them
the most abundant success. It Isl
not enough to do as Illinois is doing,
construct appropriate buildings and
then wait until the boys and girls
come and demand a farmers educa
ton. Men must be in charge who
are thoroughly competent to furnish
the education that they desire pub
licity must be given to this fact, and,
until this is done, Illinois boys will
seek their education in Iowa and
Wisconsin instead of their OWN
The same condition of thingss
exists in Nebraska, and the farmers
of that State over it to themselvesS
that they place men in charge of
their educational institutions who
will e that the farmers son secures
the patrimOny to which he is entitled
by the various acts of Congress.
The farmers, however, are them
largely to blame for this con-
of things. It is common even
yet, and in such a State as Iowa, for
farmers to speak lightly of agricul-
tural education. They have sue
ceeded fairly we'll without it. They
pride themselves on the amount of
wealth they have accumulated dur
ing the past twenty-five years,
mainly, however, by the advance in
the price of land and by trading with
each other, and not by straight pro-s
duction either of grains or stock.