Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/189

Rh brevity, only the leading objects of the colleges are mentioned; but, had he read even so accessible an exposition of law as Kent's "Commentaries," he would have found that every act is to be construed by its contents and not by its title.

But the doctor was especially hilarious over the small number of graduates from our agricultural colleges.

Let us look at this. The number is at present very small, but I presume that no thoughtful man expected that at so early a period after their establishment the number would be very large, nor, indeed, do I expect that for some years the number will greatly increase. In a new country like ours, those professions which present the most brilliant returns will be sought for first. Hence we find that, when a farmer decides to educate his son, it is not generally with the idea of making him a farmer. And, even when he does bring him up as a farmer, he has great doubts as to the value of any instruction for that purpose outside of the old farm routine.

But while I allow freely that this is the case now, I can state quite as confidently that this condition of things cannot continue for many years. There are those now living among us who will stand among a hundred millions of citizens within the boundaries of our Republic. When that day comes—nay, long before—this present condition of things must change. The present system of routine cultivation—this present system of "skinning" lands and then running away to soils more fruitful, in the intention of robbing and running away from them in turn—cannot last. Men must get a subsistence on less and less land; and they can only get it by bringing to bear upon it better and better cultivation. How soon we shall come to the division of property in the Scotch Lothians or the Belgian Pays de Waes, with their small farms exquisitely tilled, and supporting well a body of thrifty men, I cannot say; but the steady approximation to it is as inevitable as fate. And at the same time that this goes on, the professions hitherto known as "learned" will be more and more thoroughly filled. We see the beginnings of this now. Already is it becoming less and less easy for the farmer's boy to be sure that the little dark office in the great city block, swarming with lawyers, is, after all, so much more promising than the open fields and the work of the farmer.

And now, what should this industrial education be? Many men, hastily looking over the subject, have jumped to the conclusion that it should consist in simply teaching the plain arts of husbandry and of mechanics; that is, that the great object should be to train young men simply or mainly to hoe or spade or plough in the fields, or to make chairs or shoes, or hats or boats, in the shops. There could be no more wretched perversion of the trust imposed by Congress. The phraseology of the act of 1862 was chosen with great care, and, when it speaks of "branches relating to agriculture and the mechanic arts," it means just what it says. It meant to provide that all applicable