Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1914-02-05

mo Ony WS tnere a lac OIL any uucdIo IoSIdH VI edcHlnB
after, most intelligent people, including farmers themselves, looked
down upon the agricultural school IS a doubtful agency in education.
The students of the Vermont Agricultural College, as everywhere else,
we're not in favor with the general student body. The "Aggies' were
looked upon as decidedly inferior to students of arts, of science, or of
engineering; and when the University of Vermont, an old and we'll
established institution, took over the State Agricultural College, it was
not through any sympathy with the ideal of agricultural education,
or through any desire to have a agricultural college as a part Of the
university. The Agricultural College and the students in it lived for
many years in an atmosphere in which the prejudices of trustees, of
faculty, and-most of an-of students were directed against them. 1t
is not surprising that in this situation the trustees should lend them
selves to a policy that enabled them to build up the parts of the univer-
sty in which they really believed and to devote to agriculture a meagre
remainder. In most states this situation has undergone a TRANSFORMED
ton during the last ten or fifteen years. To-day the applications of
science to agriculture, to stock raising, to farm machinery, have all
come to be recognized as subjects capable of being taught in a college.
Agricultural education, from being neglected, stands now very much
in danger of becoming a fad, and of suffering impractical and unwise
exploitation for the next quarter of a century. In many states of
the union the agricultural college has developed a close connection with
the industries OF agriculture, and thereby mas brought TO ls support
the farmers of the state, s % that it Yields not only a large political
influence, but obtains thereby a generous state support. This has not
yet happened in Vermont. 1t i true that the "Aggies' are no longer
looked down upon rs they were, but the resulting change has brought
about no difference of policy Is to the spending of the large fund e
ceived from the general government. The Agricultural College remains
in the same starved condition in which it has existed sine: its foun-
dation.
The most practical and definite obligation of the state at the present
time in higher education is to see that a clear policy is entered upon
as to the function of the Agricultural College, and that then, in the
second place, the college shall be adequately supported.
Shall the function of the Agricultural College be to train farm boys
in the technique of their vocation in some such way as they are trained
in the agricultural school at Lyndonvile, or shall its function be to
develop scientific agriculture in Vermont? Either one of these func-
lions is deensibe, but they cannot both be carried on simultaneously.
Our experience of fifty years in agricultural education goes to show
that a trade school will not grow in a university atmosphere, and that
the real function of a university college of agriculture is the promo
ton of scientific agriculture and the maintenance at the same time
of right relations to elementary agricultural training-schook. The
second, and in some ways the greatest, function of a technical college
of agriculture is the development of a fruitful and stimulating relation
with the farming industries of the state in which it stands. To be in
close touch with the agricultural problems of the state, to deal with
these problems by the best means that science affords, and to put the
fruits of these Investigations by simple, direct, and feasible methods
into the hands of the farmers themselves, is the greatest function
that such a agency can perform.
In order to play this role, the State Agricultural College must have
adequate support. That a state should be receiving from the
federal government so large a sum, and that it should, under these
circumstances, starve its Agricultural College into a position where
tt S neither an effective agency for education nor for scientific expert
ment, is a situation that ought to continue no longer. Whether it be
true o + not that the legislation enacted by Congress makes legal the
expenditure of the United States grant in any way the trustees may
choose, it is certainly neither to the honor nor to the credit of a state
to receive this generous grant of the general government and use it
for the upbuilding of miscellaneous departments of instruction at the
expense of the primary purpose for which the appropriation was made.
BY every consideration Of efficiency and Of state pride the common
wealth should insist that a fair proportion Of the United States annual
grant shall go into agricultural instruction, and it should supple
ment his income by such means Is are necessary to effect the contact
between the agricultural school and the agricultural industries, a cause
which is not within the provisions Of the grants made by the general
government.
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