UIHistories Project: A History of the University of Illinois by Kalev Leetaru
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Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1871 [PAGE 302]

Caption: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1871
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294 venture that he will recommend to all of us to give instruction to our students in the principles of zoology, and in the principles of physiology even, before we proceed to instructing them in the science, or the art of stock-breeding, and stock-managing, and so on, and so on. ]STo doubt agriculture is an art that is largely based upon experiment and that a progress in the sciences upon which it is based, actually has been made subsequent to a large progress in the art, and I am sure the gentleman won't assert that every operation on the farm is actually based upon the principles, whether known or not, which, if understood fairly, would belong to science. And I am sure he will say also that any scientific knowledge of these principles, whether we have that now or not, would be vastly important to the progress of the science. Mr. Miles—I will go as far as any gentleman in my admiration of science, and its uses. A man is a better observer who is a thorough scientific man. But the idea that I am proceeding against is this: that our art is based upon science—that the rules of our art are based upon science; and that we call the art the science of agriculture. Now take the illustration of stock-breeding; it is a very good one. If I were going to teach a class stock-breeding, I would like to have them understand physiology and zoology, and all of those other natural sciences, because I could bring illustrations to fix the principles that I inculcated; and they would be illustrations that they would appreciate. That is all true. A knowledge of science in the student is desirable. But the question arises : Have we made any progress in stock-breeding through scientific investigation? I say no; not one step. Go back to two or three hundred years and take those old writers, and you will find just as pertinent rules laid down for the breeding of stock as you will find in any modern writer. "What the scientific man has done, or is attempting to do, is to explain these rules of breeding. Take the first work on Agriculture published in Germany, and you will find the rules for breeding, for the selection of the male, for the selection of the female, and the relations of the one to the other, and so on. Come down to later times, and take the writings of John Mill, and the writings of some of the old English farmers, and they get at this matter of experiment, as a matter of observation, that certain forms and colors were adapted to coupling with certain other forms or colors. The scientific man has settled very many things; there are many points in which he has succeeded. It is true that in zoology and in physiology we have a great many illustrations which we cannot expect to understand when teaching the principles of stock-breeding.