Agricultural Education.
The Michigan Agricultural College is one of
the oldest of these special institutions for the
farmer, and occupies a front rank. It has been
fortunate in securing for teachers men who win
the interest of the common farmer, as well as of
the student, and who appear by their acts to
deem it not unessential for the working of an
agricultural college, that professors shall do outwork which shall gain them the sympathy of the
great outside public. Thus we have Professor
Stockbridge in Massachusetts, Professor Beal at
Michigan, and a few other names we could mention, teachers in the great outside world, and

benefactors to agriculture, and building up a
reputation which reacts for the benefit of the
college and for the advantage of the students
whom it is their more immediate duty to teach.
Wherever these professors mingle the most with
the outside world, we find a reaction upon themselves which is educational, as removing them
from dead issues, and bringing before them the
live issues of the day. Professor Beal is none
the less an accurate and scientific man because
he investigates, through the methods and trainings of science, the germination of seeds as a
question affecting the farmer. Indeed, it appears as if our technical schools were having a
tendency in the direction of removing that
reproach to science, that it concerns itself too
closely with definitions and identifications, and
ignores the practical uses of what it investigates.

Now Professor Beal has met with the farmer,
has argued with him, has been contradicted by
him in convention, and has had to argue for
views which have seemed to him, perhaps, too
clear to require argument; has seen the farmer’s
failings, and wherein he requires a broadening of
view, and wherein a recalling from the region of
fancy to that of fact; and is prepared thus to
meet in his teachings those difficulties which he
has found to exist. He has learned that the
farming interest requires, the most of any occupation, an accuracy of observation, and a correctness of reasoning from facts. Hence when
we find him laying stress upon object teaching,
upon mind teaching, rather than upon how to
recite the most accurately from a book; when
we find this teaching founded upon objects and
observations which shall apply and be of use
in after life, we not only recognize the good
sense of the course, and the wisdom which seeks
material of use for illustration instead of other
more worthless objects for the farmer’s practice,
but we feel as if Professor Beal had been directed in this course by the experience gained
from his association with the farmer.

We have just received advance sheets of Professor Beal's report to the President of the Michigan State Agricultural College, in which he
details the work in the department over which
he presides, during the past year, which we have
read with interest. We find he commences with
the freshman class, by teaching them how to
observe; for some weeks, he says, “but little use
was made of microscopes or text books. In
nearly all cases specimens were examined, and
a need was felt for definitions and names before
these were given”; and, “It is astonishing to
notice how much is discovered by so many good
eyes, yet it is sometimes equally surprising to
see that some simple prominent points are overlooked by all.” In the teaching of horticulture,
“no use was made of text books,” but daily lectures, and the value of individual observation
and experimenting was so prominently set forth
that the students took up experimenting on their
own account, and selected of their own accord
such a list as is given below: —

One is crossing the flowers of wheat for new
varieties; one crosses wild and cultivated crabapples; two cross corn; two or three cross different sorts of lilacs; one observes the duration of
flowers of several kinds; one crosses tomatoes; one
observes the peculiarities in the germination of
seeds; one monstrosities among flowers and
plants; another layers apples; one studies parasitic plants; another tries to discover how Nature
sows wild oats; one studies the nodding of the
heads of wheat; another the depth of the roots of
barley and oats; another sows seeds and raises
plants of clover, the parent plant of which bore
many leaves which had four leaflets; another
plants “buggy” peas and those not buggy, for
comparison; another digs up stools of chess to
find the old kernels from which the plants grew.
In this report, lists of the thorough questioning periodically given are furnished, by which is
evidenced the scientific — toward uses and applications — nature of the teaching. The value of such
work as is here given, in truly educating the public as well as the student, can scarcely be estimated

 too highly; for the farmer, from the nature
of his pursuit, is more isolated in his daily life
than the mechanic or the trader, and is removed
to a greater extent from the daily stimulation of
recognized contact with competitors, and therefore requires more the exercise of that thought
which can of itself stimulate a contemplative
and quiet life to the utmost towards advancement and victory in a competition as great, even
if less immediately felt, in the farmer’s pursuit,
as in the others.

This report of Professor Beal’s deals much
with experiments of his own, and carried out
under his direction; but it is the teaching-
aspect that we are now considering. Here we
have a just recognition of that fact that experiment is at the basis of agricultural education,
and that this resource is as available to the professor of agriculture as it is to the professor of
chemistry; that the study of botany and horticulture can be practical, and stimulate the action
of the hand as well as the action of the brain;
and that in this co-education of mind and muscle,
progress in the farmer’s struggle for a competence and a living can ensue. It is just such
work, and just such means as these in vogue at
this college, in one department at least, which is
to truly educate the farmer, and which shall
remove this crudeness which at present exists,
and this fog which hangs over the agricultural
public, and obscures the interpretation of the
majority of so-called experiments. It is but
rarely that we find an experiment in agriculture
reported which will bear our test. What is this
test ? Any experiment which will prove, by the
same logic applied to its interpretation, two
opposite and discordant propositions as well as
either one, is fallacious, misleading, incorrect, and
injurious. Any one series of experiments which
will prove that phosphoric acid is better than
potash in a given application of manures, and
that no manure is better than either, and that
the less is more than the greater, and as well
that the greater is more than the less, is an illustration of what we mean; and such experiments
we can find monthly in our press, can find advocated by men of more influence than knowledge,
and can even find held up for support by some
professors in their teachings. Professor Beal
evidently believes nothing in such a course, but
believes, in not only himself, but in teaching
others, to follow out causes and effects in Nature,
so as to be able to interpret results correctly,
and so definitely that these results may be safely
applied and used as guides for practice.

The friends of agricultural education have
much to do. They must clearly appreciate what
the calling of agriculture requires, and then must
not only support by their commendation those
who are working in this cause, but must as well
discourage all effort in a false direction, and all
talk and work in the direction which is counter
to the laws of Nature and the interpretations of
the best of science. They must ask for science,
but not science alone. Science in its applied
form, the close observation of effects, and the
accurate formulating of causes, and the logical
reasoning which shall connect a given cause
with its outcoming effect,— this is agricultural
education in its beginning. In its ending, we
shall have the greatest success in any given applications that the means of the experimenter
or farmer shall admit of. So mote it be