Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

the date at which it shall be held; shall provide a well-prepared order of business and programme of exercises for such meeting, and shall make seasonable issue of said programme.

It shall be the duty of each institution included in this Association to present, at each regularly called meeting, a brief report of the work and progress of said institution, and such report shall be called for in the regular order of business.

The executive committee shall be charged with the general arrangement and conduct of the meeting called by it; at which meeting, before its adjournment, a new executive committee shall be chosen.

AMENDMENTS.

This consitution may be amended or changed at any regularly called meeting by a vote of two-thirds of the delegates present.

PROCEEDINGS.

FIRST DAY.

MORNING SESSION, TUESDAY.

KNOXVILLE, TENN., January 1, 1889. The convention was called to order at noon, at the Experiment Station building, University of Tennessee, by President Atherton.

Rev. J. H. Frazee, of Knoxville, offered prayer.

The PRESIDENT. The officers of the Association being continued by the constitution during the sessions of the convention, the Association is now organized for business. Our first exercise-an agreeable one-will be to receive a word of welcome from Dr. Dabney, president of the University of Tennessee and director of the Experiment Station.

Mr. DABNEY. Mr. President and gentlemen: It gives me very great pleasure to bid you welcome to our University and to our Experiment Station. Words can not be found to express my pride and gratification at seeing here so many of the great educators and scientists of the country. You are welcome, indeed, to our hill and our hall. We bid you welcome, gentlemen, to all that you find. Enjoy it, whatever it may be. We hope you will call upon us to serve you while you are here, and we shall be glad to do everything we can for that purpose. We want to aid you in every respect within our power. If I were allowed to point to anything with pride, as is the usual custom on occasions like this, it would be to my staff of co-workers in this University. I am glad to say we have in the University eighteen professors and instructors, representing thirteen of the leading universities of Europe and this country, and natives of some ten different States.

It gives me pleasure to say that Judge Temple, chairman of the executive committee of the city of Knoxville and chairman of our board of control, for many years the president of the board of trustees of the University of Tennessee, is present with us, and will express in fitter language than I can the sentiments of the city of Knoxville and the University of Tennessee on this occasion. I take great pleasure in in

troducing him. [Applause.]

Judge TEMPLE then delivered the following address of welcome : Mr. President and gentlemen of the Associated Agricultural Colleges: Permit me, in the outset, on behalf of the committee of welcome, to extend to you all our New Year's greetings with good wishes for the

dear ones at your homes. You are engaged in your several States in the solution of momentous problems. They are, in part, in their ultimate results: How can the earth be made more productive by the discoveries and application of science? the toils of the husbandman be made lighter and pleasanter and his harvests surer and greater? And intimately connected with these, are the questions: How can farm life be rendered attractive? how can farmers' sons be kept contented on the farm? and how can farming be elevated in dignity and respectability as a calling? And these lead naturally to the consideration of the harmonious blending of the beautiful and the useful in farm life; the cultivation of the esthetic in combination with the application of the highest principles of production and farm economy.

As the years go by, as population crowds thicker and thicker, as the virgin soil becomes less and less, and the waste and exhaustion greater, as the demand on each acre year by year shall increase, the question will grow louder with each succeeding generation-how are these hundreds of millions of eaters to be supplied with cheap food? How can our fields be made to augment their productive capacity, so as to meet the ever-increasing demand on them?

Some of these questions may in the future demand the ripest science and the wisest statesmanship. Some press for solution now. The possibility of solving them by individual effort or private means is hopeless. It can only be done, and then perhaps only in part, by ample, concentrated capital, under the best scholars of the age, all working along a common line and towards a common object. The aid of Government is indispensable. The Congress of 1862, in providing the means for the inauguration of a general system of investigation and instruction in the science of agriculture, commenced this great work. It is a remarkable fact that this should have been done when the nation was in the very throes of a great civil war, at a time, too, when great disas ters were impending. The act of 1887 providing for experiment stations was a fitting and a grand supplement to the act of 1862. Other acts no doubt will follow from time to time, as their necessity is demonstrated by experience. I feel sure that in the near future more ample provision will be made for instruction in the mechanic arts. No language could more clearly define the object of Congress than does that of the act of 1862. I need not repeat it. It was intended to provide for the education of the industrial classes. It was to be a new education, totally different from that obtainable in the then existing colleges. Classical schools there were already in abundance. There ought never to have been any doubt as to the meaning of the law. And yet, plain as the law is, this fund was for many years, in many of the States, perverted from its true use, and frittered away as an aid to classical instruction. This was especially the case in some of the States where the fund had been bestowed on old literary colleges.

There are many reasons why the friends of this new education have

been disappointed in the results thus far accomplished, or at least until quite recently accomplished.

First. The industrial classes, strange to say, have never warmly sympathized with the object of this education. They do not believe in what they term book education for the farmers, and yet they object to a practical education by work on the farm, because they can get that at home. They have been slow to send their sons to such colleges, and reluctant to have them pursue agricultural studies when they have sent them. They prefer that their sons should be prepared for the so-called learned professions.

Second. It was difficult twenty, or even ten years ago, to find men qualified to act efficiently as professors in these new fields of learning. The situation was new, and even the professors themselves hardly knew what to do.

Third. With inadequate funds in nearly all cases, and in many cases with no assistance from the States, sufficient aids to instruction could not be provided. The necessary machinery for efficient work was totally wanting.

Fourth. The boards of trustees, especially when this fund was bestowed on old colleges, chosen for the most part from the professional and mercantile classes, and lacking all scientific acquirements, generally had no adequate idea of what these new schools should be, or what should be done to inaugurate and organize them. A slight modifica tion of the old order of things, the introduction of one or two new professors, with no well-defined line of duties, and with no provision of the necessary equipments for instruction, were about all the changes. that were made or dreamed of.

Fifth. Sometimes in these old colleges the greatest hindrance arose from the secret opposition of the old literary faculties. Educated in the old-time studies and modes of thought, being slow to appreciate new ideas and methods, their whole influence was thrown against this strange child, introduced into the family as a sharer in the inheritance. If there was no effort to kill the child outright, there was to make and keep it sickly and puny by giving it insufficient air and food. It was put off in a cold corner, and, like Oliver Twist, was fed on a limited quantity of the thinnest possible gruel. And though, like Oliver, it piteously begged for more, like Oliver it got no more.

The language, "such branches of learning as are related to agricult. ure and the mechanic arts," was sometimes gravely construed by these literary professors as including all learning, from the ancient languages down to the latest ology, because, they argued, all learning was related either directly or indirectly to agriculture and the mechanic arts, and therefore the land-grant fund could be used for the benefit of all! What a brood of poor kin came to claim relationship with this rich young heir! The relationship in most cases is about as near and as palpable as Mark Twain's to his ancestor, Adam, whose tomb he found, 24006-No. 1—2

and over which he so pathetically mourned and wept, refusing to be comforted!

Oh, the conservative immobility of some of these old professors! They seemed to fear for the world to move lest it should jostle and disturb them in their medieval repose!

I would not depreciate or undervalue classical studies; rather, I would uphold and exalt them in their proper sphere. For certain professions nothing can supply their place. They form a marvelous storehouse from which to draw gems of rarest beauty. For the highest intellectual enjoyment there is no other field of learning so full of rich treasures of thought and imagination. But for industrial classes this learning is unnecessary, useless, beyond their reach. I have no sympathy with John Randolph's celebrated sarcasm, applied to the minds of the New England students educated in such schools, that they were like the old fields of Virginia, "poor by nature and exhausted by cultivation." Classical studies never exhaust; they strengthen and enrich.

All agricultural colleges perhaps had their difficulties in the beginning. We certainly had ours. About fifteen years ago my distinguished friend, Professor Atwater, filled with honor to himself and profit to us the chair of agricultural chemistry in this university. Things did not run very smoothly, nor very fast, nor by automatic motion in those days. He and I used to lay our heads together to find out how to put the agricultural machinery in motion. The machine had but feeble motive power, so we went at it manfully, he pulling in the lead and I pushing; but as it was all up hill, with no level or down grade, as often as we stopped to breathe, it slid down to the bottom again. At last the professor, despairing of reaching the summit of the hill, and perhaps thinking there was no summit on that road, like the Arab, folded his tent and silently went away.

But we trust these obstructions have everywhere been removed. Our distinguished young president, as well as the corps of learned assistants, whom he has been so fortunate as to gather around him, are thoroughly in earnest in their great work, and it is confidently expected that this university will take its place as one of the most progressive institutions in the country. It only remains for me, in conclusion, to perform the duty assigned me, of bidding you, in the name of the president and faculty and trustees of the University of Tennessee, and on behalf of the citizens of our city, a most cordial welcome to our midst. May your visit be all you could desire, and your meetings be both pleasant and profitable. [Applause.]

The PRESIDENT. Dr. Dabney and Judge Temple: In behalf of the Association, I have great pleasure in responding to your welcome and in saying for all, what is already written in the faces of all, that we cordially appreciate the kindly words you have spoken. Our object in coming here has not been to do honor to any particular place, although

« AnteriorContinuar »