Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1871 [PAGE 317]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

309 cultural education. In the management of our colleges we have to combat a prejudice; and the most we can desire, is to have a very large audience at those meetings. We wrant not only States, but counties, represented. Mr. Miles—It seems to me almost impossible for any one to discuss this subject of experimentation, unless they are actually engaged in it; they cannot see the force of the arguments ; they do not understand them. It seems to me it would be better to limit it to those who are engaged in experimenting. Mr. Denison—Would not the objection be met by making the experimenters a section ? They can be sections of the meeting, and discuss the matter to the fullest possible extent. Mr. Miles—There is the difficulty. This would be included in a larger organization, and be subject, to a certain extent, to that wider organization. The difficulty that the gentlemen are trying to obviate, can be got over with in this way : Make the larger organization an independent one ; and then arrange to have the meetings at the same time and place. I think the work of the Experimental Convention could be carried on more successfully and more satisfactorily, if it was placed entirely in their control. Mr. Hamilton—I do not know whether I understand the intention of Dr. Miles in regard to this matter; whether he includes in experimenters, all persons who are interested in experiments, directly and indirectly; that is, the Professors of Agriculture, who are carrying on these experiments, and the Presidents of colleges who control them. Now, it seems to me very necessary that if the Professors of Agriculture meet together, and wish to do any effective work, in which they can engage their own colleges, they will have to have some other representative from the colleges, who have general control of the interests of their colleges. They will have to be in every convention at which these experimenters meet. The experimenters are not acting independently of these colleges ; they are a part of these colleges—but a department; and the funds that they get for the purpose of carrying on their experiments, and all the assistance they receive, they receive from these colleges ; and the Presidents of these colleges should be consulted in regard to any enterprise which they enter upon. It seems to me that our convention could be broad enough, at least, to include the Presidents of our colleges, or some representative from the Board of Trustees—let the President be the representative, if you will; the Secretary of our State Agricultural Society, the Commissioner of Agriculture, and other persons who are interested in this thing. And by in-