France, one of the public departmen supported at public expense, as much its function being:

To hold an active communication in this State, as well as in other states, To correspond with all our foreign ing from every country what may be For the reception and distribution o essays, and eventually books, on husb For the receipt and distribution agriculture.

For the receipt of reports from co pilation of an annual volume. .

14

We will suppose a farm containing land, in the vicinity of Albany, to be director of agriculture, and containi permanent flowing stream of water. C erected suitable buildings to accomm and several work shops, for the cons Place this establishment under the su of agriculture, with suitable assista plants, shrubs, grain, trees, etc., to un lish their congeniality to our soil, and

14

Ibid., p. 183. Exhibits and cattle show Dean, A biographical sketch of Elkanah W

superi

bordinate schools, let the youth be s on the first elements of agricultheir capacities, and taught as a

ded into ten agricultural districts. ach, under the superintendence of ed, at least for one or two years, process of time, under the operaI hazard nothing in venturing a the great mass of our citizens

oon crystallized the idea of cola national clearing house of agriCongress never carried out coms, and although Thomas Jefferson n a national military academy on ously no mere coincidence that in h the Department of Agriculture to agricultural colleges while the y it have been a mere coincidence to those state universities which

On the institution of a pattern farm,” nals, separately paged.

16

agriculture, connecting with it the edu edge of that most important art, wh useful knowledge suitable for the State." Among the alternatives for cation which the committee presente suggestion that professorships might the University of Pennsylvania, D institutions, " for the purpose of t sophical, and elementary parts of the t believed that the common school sy made to contribute to the technical that the country schoolmasters might societies, and the schoolhouses the repositaries of their transactions." 1 that the legislature "enjoin on these tion of the subject of agriculture wi tion," suggesting that the essays of th the proceedings of the society would a information.

The Massachusetts society was sim considered a proposition for an end

18 True, in Department of Agriculture, Y

and a professorship of natural history at Harvard College, and three years later its ideals were partially realized.

Agricultural fairs were suggested at this time, but they were not extended very widely until later.

Forming a strong background for future courses in agriculture and extension work were the collections of books which had been gathered immediately after the Revolutionary War in the college libraries at Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, Columbia, Dickinson, Princeton, Rutgers, and the University of Pennsylvania. The agricultural societies also collected fugitive papers on farming and began to publish them in book form. Soon exchanges with other libraries in Europe augmented the accumulation of books so that not only the college libraries but the public and private institutions as well maintained sufficient material to be utilized in agricultural study.

Coincident with this organization of teachable knowledge was the inevitable development of the kind of formal education in which the Office of Experiment Stations is interested. The first bona fide agricultural school that was established in the United States was a farm school on Thompson's Island near Boston, which was opened in 1804 and is still in operation."

66

But an institution nearer the type that now involves the Office of Experiment Stations was proposed by Simeon DeWitt in his Consideration on the necessity of establishing an agricultural college," which appeared in 1819 when he agitated the founding of "The Agricultural College of the State of New York." During this same year an academy was founded at Norwich, Vermont, which offered mechanical, agricultural, and military courses. In 1824 an agricultural department was organized at Trinity (then Washington) College in Connecticut, to include military instruction somewhat on the future land-grant college plan.

The idea of the modern "agricultural and mechanical" college was accepted by the Maine legislature of 1821 when it provided for an annual grant of one thousand dollars for the maintenance of instruction for farmers and mechanics at the Gardner Lyceum. Here was supported a professor of agriculture and a practical farm, and in the winter special short courses were given.

17

" Beal, History of the Michigan agricultural college, p. 4.

declared that education more particul pursuits was needed."

For "a course in practical agricu Benjamin Bussey bequeathed two hu money in 1835, and two years later th authorized an agricultural survey to b means of improvement might be point York legislature passed "an Act to State Agricultural School" to include -but financial aid was not granted.

These developments tended to bring into a common relationship, and to est medium of exchange.

Conforming to the Ordinance of "knowledge being necessary to good go of mankind, schools and the increase o encouraged," the states that were form tory and the trans-Mississippi region 1

18

Quoted by True, in Yearbook, 1899, p. 1 19 Massachusetts Resolves, VI, pp. 381, 379 of 2 sess., 1826-27.

20

Lord, History of Dartmouth college, 18 21 Massachusetts. Session laws, 1837, p. 554