the colleges and to the individuals so great, that, view it in whatever light we may, the benefit is still clearly on the side of the student.

HOW THE DEPARTMENTS OF MILITARY SCIENCE AND TACTICS BENEFIT THE COLLEGES THEMSELVES.

While, as has been before stated, no little objection has in the past been raised to the maintenance of the military departments of the State colleges, the fact nevertheless remains that these very departments have been instrumental in materially increasing their patronage. The military feature may be said to be a drawing card, attracting many young men to the colleges who would not otherwise be induced to enter college life. The popularity of the military departments is everywhere commented upon, and is conceded to be an increasing rather than a diminishing quantity. Proof of this may be had by examining the records of those institutions where military instruction is not required by law and where it has been made optional.

Again, the departments of military science and tactics serve to complete and properly round out what would otherwise often be a somewhat one-sided organization. They give a distinctive and generally healthy tone to the institutions of which they form a part. Where, as in many colleges, the discipline is to a greater or less degree of a military character, the order and system thus secured in routine work and the habits of neatness and promptness and unhesitating obedience inculcated render the harmonious working of the many separate and technical departments possible. The question of college discipline has of late years become a very serious one, and educators would be glad indeed to welcome any solution of it that would afford a reasonable settlement of the struggle between the opposing principles of central governing power and individual liberty. For the present it would seem however, that in institutions below the grade of the university, which educate students in purely collegiate courses, the most satisfactory system yet devised is that of a carefully adjusted and wisely administered plan of military discipline.

Still another benefit arising to the college from the military feature is the spirit of emulation and healthy competition excited by the bestowal of the honors of the military organization upon the most deserving members of the corps. And here it is but proper to say that the success or failure of the department, and often indeed of the work of the whole institution, depends peculiarly upon the army officer detailed. With tact and energy and enthusiasm his work may not only be made selfsustaining, but may be highly conducive to the general welfare of the school. An indifferent, weak, or indiscreet officer will inevitably do much more harm than good. A very decided stimulus to those who become particularly interested in the work of the military department is the provision that "the names of the three most distinguished students in military science and tactics at each college shall, when grad

uated, be inserted in the U. S. Army Register and published in general orders." The same result is in a measure accomplished by the annual inspections.

HOW THE MILITARY INSTRUCTION IS OF ADVANTAGE TO STUDENTS.

The beneficial effect of military training upon the students themselves needs hardly be dwelt upon. It affords that most necessary of all things to a growing youth-plenty of regular exercise. Its effects are both physical and moral. The preliminary calisthenics and the daily drill are of such a nature as to develop every muscle of the body. The correct carriage and the complete control over the limbs, soon acquired, while eminently conducive to grace and ease of motion, at the same time strengthen the lungs, broaden the chest, and secure a normal position and action of all the organs. If nothing else, the drill is clearly healthy.

More than this, the training in the school of the soldier renders the student self-reliant and manly. By teaching him the lesson of absolute obedience, it makes him capable of commanding others; and by requiring strict attention and absolute accuracy in everything undertaken, it instills habits of order and promptness, which must ever prove of the highest advantage to him in every walk of life. Finally, it furnishes a relief from the daily routine of study and recitation and lectures that no other form of labor or amusement can exactly supply, combining enough of physical exertion and mental excitement to constitute a perfect exercise.

The report of the Adjutant-General of the United States for 1891 places the number of students receiving military instruction in fiftyseven colleges at about seventy-four hundred.

AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATIONS.

Experimental agriculture is, of course, no new thing. Ever since men began to look to the cultivation of the soil for the gratification of their wants, much of the labor expended in this direction has been of an experimental nature. Indeed, one may say that until the present century the practice of experimental agriculture was even more widespread than it is to-day, since every agriculturist engaged in it to a certain extent upon his own land and for his own benefit. Such agricultural knowledge as was matter of common property consisted in a number of crude rules and superstitions handed down by word of mouth through successive generations until they passed into the realm of the proverbial; and where, as was frequently the case, they were based upon a lack of understanding or a misunderstanding of the laws of nature, they have been the hardest of all popular errors to eradicate, since they are the deepest rooted. While the changes and discoveries and general improvements in almost every other department of human industry have been constant and rapid,

the increase and the spread of agricultural knowledge have been slow indeed, resulting partly from the social condition of those engaged in tilling the soil, partly from the fact that men's minds have been more engaged with commerce, with philosophical and religious controversies, and with the struggle for forms of government and political supremacy, than with the peaceful arts of husbandry; but improvements in agricultural methods have been especially retarded, because the true key that was to unlock the secrets of nature has so long been lacking. Science was not, and without it advancement was impossible. Modern science is to agriculture what steam and electricity have become to the commercial and social intercourse of nations. It has simply made great results practicable. The first applications of agricultural chemistry by Liebig in 1840 opened the way. Then, for the first time, agriculturists began to hope for a little more light upon questions which their forefathers were wont to regard as beyond the range of human thought to solve or human ingenuity to influence; and agriculture was reduced to a system. But even before this time causes had begun to operate which served to turn the attention of European nations towards the cultivation of the soil. By the close of the eighteenth century, the true value of the science of political economy had begun to be realized. The physiocratic idea of agriculture as the one source of wealth had taken considerable root in France, and Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" had been published in England. The new science pointed out the relations of the manual industries to each other, and to the State, and demonstrated the dependence of the nation upon the farm and the farmer. As a result, the first agricultural experiment station had been projected in England by Sir John Bennet Laws, and while no startling improvements in agriculture immediately followed this effort, the wisdom of the plan was seen by continental landowners, and within ten years several more successful attempts were made, stations being established at Moeckern, Saxony, and at several other places in Germany, in France, and in England. The work of these stations was necessarily of a crude and often of an absurd character; there were, of course, but few facilities for anything like accurate, scientific investigations; and the newness of the field, the many difficulties of ignorance and prejudice to be overcome, and the almost absolute dearth of literature upon the whole subject made the task of organization and of formulating schemes of work a truly formidable one.

Until the several governments, acting upon the advice of far-seeing economists, and recognizing the possibilities in such systematic research, lent their support and coöperation to these pioneers of agricultural science, the fate of the experiment stations hung trembling in the balance. But the introduction of truly scientific methods, and a few years of actual demonstration of the great results possible to be obtained by them, ultimately overcame the incredulity and suspicion with which they were at first regarded, and soon stations for agricul

tural investigation and experimentation were generally established throughout northwestern Europe. In 1885 about one hundred and fifty such stations were in operation, and since that time their work has been so systematized and arranged that in France and Germany at least the departments of agriculture rank among the most efficiently administered of all the government institutions.

One feature of the system in vogue upon the continent, consequent upon the centralization of the direction of experimental work, is the assignment to many of the stations of particular lines of investigation, thus securing a maximum of definite results at a minimum of expense; but it may be said in favor of the American system-if system it may be called-that the actual value of the experiments performed, where the work of no station is restricted in its scope, is often greater by reason of repeated verifications at other stations. It is not the purpose of this article, however, to enter into a detailed account of the organization and workings of European stations. Let us briefly review the history of experimental agriculture in the United States.

If we examine the charters and the curricula of the institutions of learning established in this country prior to 1860, we shall find in sev eral instances chairs of agriculture provided for. The work of these chairs was generally somewhat more than mere instruction in the principles of the science-then but little understood by the pubiic-and it often extended to the conduct of experiments in the lines of ordinary farm management. With the passage of the act of Congress of 1862, for the endowment of colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts, a new impetus was given to these investigations. While still not known by the specific name of "Experiment Stations," the chairs of agriculture were in reality performing the functions of such institutionscarrying on regular lines of experimentation and publishing the results for the benefit of the farming communities. The first experiment station calling itself by that name was established in 1875 by Mr. Orange Judd, at Middletown, Conn., coöperating with the university at that place. Other States soon followed the example set by Connecticut. In some cases the station was conducted as a department of the agricultural college; in others it was an entirely separate institution. Several of the colleges, established in compliance with the land-grant act of 1862, adopted this method of bringing their work in scientific agriculture to the notice of the public. In 1886, about twelve such stations were in operation. In that year, Mr. Hatch, in submitting the report from the Committee on Agriculture (to accompany II. R. 2933), offered the following statement as a summary of the beneficial results already obtained by the stations then in operation:

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"Combining as they do the precision of scientific methods with an intelligent regard for the requirements of practical operations, it is not surprising that they have come to be looked upon wherever established as the most important aid to successful farming as well as the foremost agency for the advancement of agricultural

science. They have taught the most profitable methods of cultivation and fertilization with different soils and crops and the best ways of doing the thousand operations of daily work; have driven out of the markets inferior fertilizers, food stuffs, and seeds, thereby saving millions of dollars to the farming community; and by raising the productiveness of agricultural industry have to that extent helped to solve one of the hardest standing problems of society-how to relieve the pressure of population upon subsistence."

In 1887 the bill, known as the "Hatch Experiment Station Act," to establish agricultural experiment stations in connection with the colleges established in the States under the provisions of the endowment act of 1862, was passed by the Forty-ninth Congress and became a law. It provides for the establishment of experiment stations or for the maintenance of stations already established in each State and Territory, and appropriates the sum of $15,000 annually for their support out of any money in the Treasury proceeding from the sale of public lands. It requires the sending of a full and detailed annual report of the operations of each station, with a statement of its receipts and expenditures, to the governor of the State or Territory in which such station is located, to the Departments of Agriculture and of the Treasury, and to every other such station. The bill also provides for the publication by said stations of at least quarterly bulletins, and for their distribution, all such reports and bulletins to be transmitted through the mails of the United States free of charge. In order to secure some uniformity in the work, certain supervisory powers are vested in the United States Department of Agriculture, where a division of experiment stations has been organized which issues periodically a record of the work of the stations. The several State and Territorial legislatures are allowed in their discretion to apply such funds as are thus appropriated, in whole or in part, to stations not connected with any college of agriculture, or to stations connected with institutions not wholly agricultural in their character. As it is not intended that the amount annually paid to any station shall exceed the sum necessary for its maintenance, any unexpended balance of a preceding annual appropriation is to be deducted from the next succeeding appropriation to that station. The assent of each State to the grants of money authorized by the act is to be made by the legislature thereof, or where the payment of the appropriation became duc before the adjournment of the regular session of the legislature meeting next after the passage of the act, such assent might be made by the governor of the State. It will be seen that the act contains the following general outline of the work to be undertaken by the stations thus established and supported. They are

To conduct original researches or verify the experiments on the physiology of plants and animals; the diseases to which they are severally subject, with the remedies for the same; the chemical composition of useful plants at their different stages of growth; the comparative advantages of rotative cropping as pursued under a varying series of crops; the capacity of new plants or trees for acclimation; the analysis of soils and water; the chemical composition of manures, natural or artificial, with experiments designed to test their comparative effects on crops of different kinds;