Repository: UIHistories Project: Course Catalog - 1878-1879 [PAGE 32]

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Illinois Industrial University.

idea of teaching these arts in a college. The practical farmer who has spent his life in farm labors, laughs at the notion of sending his son to learn these from a set of scientific professors. But all this implies a gross misunderstanding of the real object of agricultural science. It is not simply to teach how to plow, but the reason for plowing at all—to teach the composition and nature of soils, the philosophy of plowing, of manures, and the adaptation of the different soils to different crops and cultures. It is not simply to teach how to feed, but to show the composition, action and value of the several kinds of food, and the laws of feeding, fattening, and healthful growth. In short, it is the aim of the true Agricultural College to enable the student to understand thoroughly, all that man can know about soils and seeds, plants and animals, and the influences of light, heat and moisture on his fields, his crops, and his stock; so that he may both understand the reason of the processes he uses, and may intelligently work for the improvement of those processes. Not "book farming," but a knowledge of the real nature of all true farming—of the great natural laws of the farm and its phenomena—this is the true aim of agricultural education. Agriculture involves a larger number of sciences than any other human employment and cannot be regardedas an unfit end of a sound collegiate training. The steady aim of the trustees has been to give to the College of Agriculture the laigest development practicable, and to meet the full demand for Agricultural education, as fast as it shall arise. Agricultural students are especially invited to the University. Boards of Agriculture, and Agricultural Associations, State and County, are invited to co-operate with the University in its efforts to awaken a more general appreciation of the value of education, and to add, by the establishment of scholarships or other means, to the number of those who avail themselves of its facilities for instruction.

INSTRUCTION.

The instruction unites, as far as possible, theory and practice —theory explaining practice and practice 'illustrating theory. The technical studies are mainly taught by lectures, with careful readings of standard agricultural books and periodicals, and frequent discussions, oral and written, by the students, of the principles taught. These are also illustrated by demonstrations and observations in the fields and stables, not only of the University, but of leading farmers and stock-growers in the vicinity.