Michigan State Farmers' Institutes Volume 5 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1899 Excerpt: ...useful citizen can be found than he may become, and his measure of recompense and satisfaction will be all the larger because of his college training. It is certainly Utopian to expect a much larger proportion of college educated men among farmers than in any other important industrial class. I doubt if well-informed agriculturists, in passing judgment upon other classes, are prepared to assert that the mechanics in our workshops, where intelligent, skillful labor, accompanied by more or less knowledge of principles, is demanded, should generally be college graduates. They would not claim this of the commercial world. It is selfevident that some mechanics and business men should be, or even must be, highly trained, but it would be foolish to expect this of more than a small minority. What farmers are not justified in claiming for these others, they may not reasonably expect in their own ranks. Every calling has its gradations of opportunity, with corresponding gradations of encouragement for the investment of intellectual capital. No business, will ever be an exception to this rule. There are many openings in agriculture--and these are on the increase--that offer encouraging recompense to the man who has taken his baccalaureate degree, but on the farm, as everywhere else, the law of supply and demand is in force. The considerations already presented to you make it clearly evident that the great bulk of the agricultural population will not in the future any more than in the past come up to the agricultural college for an education. Not even the short winter courses provided at some institutions, and which are generally attended in a few states, will secure a general systematic instruction in the fundamentals of science as related to the farm. These short cou...