the sciences and arts bearing upon agriculture and mechanic arts. The measure had met with violent opposition from “optimists, pessimists, sham economists, hold-backs and do-nothings.” Buchanan had killed it once with a veto, but at last our statesmen carried it through, and Morrill's bill, with Abraham Lincoln's signature, became one of the significant facts of our national history.

Colleges crowded forward to avail themselves of the grant. Denominational schools of all stripes and colors insisted upon dividing and sharing in its benefits. Twenty different institutions presented their claims to it in the New York Legislature alone. There was great danger that the benefits of the grant would be lost between the army of speculators in public lands and the army of obstructionists to the educational ideas it embodied, a danger not yet averted. Reckless waste and gross violation of public trust, had in many States attended the administration of the seminary lands. It was feared that this would prove true of the Agricultural College grant also. In every Western State a handful of men stood between these two fires, under every conceivable form of secret opposition and open hostility, to hold this precious legacy inviolate; and that they have so far succeeded is due to the fact that they appealed directly to the common sense of the people.

The first section of the Act of Congress (approved July 22, 1862) “donating public lands to the several States and Territories which may provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts,” provides that a quantity of land equal to 30,000 acres for each Senator and Representative of the State in Congress be given for the purpose named. Section two prescribes how the land shall be apportioned, located and sold. Section three, that all expenses should be paid by the States to which the lands belong. Section four provides:

That all moneys derived from the sale of the lands aforesaid by the States to which the lands are apportioned, and from the sales of land scrip hereinbefore provided for, shall be invested in stocks of the United States, or of the States, or some other safe stocks, yielding not less than five per centum upon the par value of said stocks; and that the money so invested shall constitute a perpetual fund, the capital of which shall remain forever undiminished (except so far as may be provided in Section five of this Act), and the interest of which shall be inviolably appropriated, by each State which may take and claim the benefit of this Act, to the endowment, support and maintenance of at least one College, where the leading object

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shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the Legislatures of the States may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life.

There can be no doubt that Congress meant to endow schools that would bear the same relation to those pursuits that schools of law and medicine do to those professions. As far as this is done, the results are all that could reasonably be expected. Where they are managed in the interests of other pursuits, as in our own case, they are not eminent successes. The question as to who is to blame can easily be settled by inquiring who has the responsibility; for in a matter like this, ignorance is not a valid plea. Farmers and mechanics must take the management of institutions, designed for their benefit, into their own hands, if they would have them succeed. No other classes are or can be so deeply interested in their success.

The average time since the opening of the thirty-nine Agricultural Colleges, enjoying the national benefaction, is less than five years. Twenty-four of them had, two years ago, an attendance of 2,604 students, with 321 instructors-an average of 109 and 12.3, respectively; while the 217 old institutions (from 30 to 100 years old) which reported their collegiate and past graduate students, in the same year, had 20,866, and 3,018 instructors, an average of 95 and 13.8, respectively. They have called out State and individual donations to a very large amount. Thirteen of them have thus received $2,923,550. Eighteen, not including the richest, Cornell, possess property and funds to the amount of $8,272,382. Neither is it true that nineteen twentieths of their graduates. never take to agriculture for a living.

Massachusetts is not an agricultural State, but she says of the fifty-seven graduates of her Agricultural College: “A large portion of them have engaged in agricultural and horticultural pursuits.” Michigan says of her sixty-seven graduates: “A large portion of them have devoted themselves to agricultural pursuits.” Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Iowa, are making educated farmers by the hundreds in Agricultural Colleges, separated from the overpowering influence of literary and purely scientific education. The difference in results is in the omission of the practical, for the quality and quantity of theoretical instruction is nearly the same in both cases. And more than all, the difference is in the spirit of the administrative or directing power of the institutions.

The Agricultural College of Alabama has two hundred acres of land, good college buildings and apparatus, one hundred and three students, thirty-nine of whom are pursuing agricultural and mechanical studies.

Arkansas Industrial University has a farm of one hundred and sixty acres, and one hundred and eighty-three students, of whom fifty are in the agricultural and mechanical course.

Illinois Industrial University had in 1873 an experimental farm of two hundred and thirteen, and a model farm of four hundred and ten acres, with three hundred and eighty-one students-males, three hundred and twenty-eight; females, fiftythree. In agricultural course, sixty-eight; architectural, four; chemical, fourteen; civil engineering, forty-five; commercial, four; electric, eighty-four; horticultural, eleven; literature and science, forty-four; mechanical engineering, thirty-three; military, fifteen; mining engineering, three; unassigned, forty-five.

The Agricultural College of Indiana has a farm of one hundred and eighty-four acres.

Iowa Agricultural College has a farnı of seven hundred and ten acres, devoted to nearly all kinds of fruits, shrubs, grains, and stock, and has two hundred and sixty-five students. The graduating class for 1872 contained twenty-six, of whom seventeen were in the agricultural course.

Kansas Agricultural College has two hundred and sixty acres, devoted to nearly all kinds of fruits, grains, stock, etc., suited to that latitude, with two hundred students under practical instruction.

Kentucky Agricultural College has two hundred and twentyfive acres of land, with fine stock, fruit, etc., and two hundred and seventeen students. Nineteen twentieths of all the labor on the farm is done by the students, for which they receive pay. Live stock on the farm is valued at five thousand dollars; crop valuation, five thousand dollars.

Maryland Agricultural College has a fine farm, animals, fruits, grains, etc., and one hundred and forty-seven students.

Massachusetts Agricultural College has three hundred and eighty-four acres, upon which was raised, in 1873, four hundred

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and eighty bushels shelled corn, five hundred bushels potatoes, forty-eight tons sugar beets, one hundred bushels rye, fifty bushels barley, three hundred bushels of oats, two tons of millet, three hundred tons of apples, and two hundred and eight tons hay, produced by one hundred and seventy-one students, laboring six hours each week on the farm, during intervals of study, under practical instruction.

The Institute of Technology, at Boston, has three hundred and fifty-six students.

The Agricultural College of Michigan has a good farm, well cultivated, and devoted to the various grains, fruits, plants, etc. Special attention given to the improved varieties of stock, cattle, sheep, and hogs. Number of students, one hundred and thirty-one, who perform four fifths of the farm labor.

Minnesota College of Agriculture and Mechanical Arts has a good farm under cultivation. Number of students, three hundred and fifty-four; of this number, one hundred and seventeen were pursuing agricultural or mechanical studies.

The College of Agricultural and Mechanical Arts, Mississippi, has one hundred and ten acres of land; forty-two students receive practical instructions from the Professor of Agriculture.

Missouri Agricultural and Mechanical College has six hundred acres, well cultivated; the best varieties of blooded stock; has raised large quantities of corn, oats, potatoes, hay, grapes, etc. Number of students, three hundred and twenty-two, who are instructed in practical agriculture, and have performed three fourths of the labor on the farm.

The College of Agriculture, University of Nebraska, has a farm of four hundred and eighty acres.

Number of students, one hundred and thirty, with twenty-five in agricultural department.

Dartmouth College has four hundred and eight students. The Commissioner of Agriculture says: “The number of students in this college has nearly doubled during the present year,” (1873.) Whether this increase is attributable, in any degree, to the establishment of the College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts with the College proper, he does not say.

The Scientific School and School of Agriculture, New Brunswick, New Jersey, has fifty students.

Cornell University Agricultural College, New York, has a farm of two hundred acres, well cultivated, raising, already, all kinds of fruits, grains, etc., common to the climate. Number of students, five hundred and twenty-five; two hundred and seven in the agricultural department.

In Oregon, the Agricultural College has one hundred and sixty-five students, with twenty-two in the Department of Agriculture and Mechanics.

The Agricultural College of Pennsylvania has a very fine college farm of three hundred acres, and three experimental farms, each containing one hundred acres. The course of study has been scientific, experimental, and practical. Number of students, one hundred and fifty.

The University of Wisconsin has five hundred and seventeen students; ninety-three in the agricultural, and one hundred and thirty-nine in the female-college.

From the foregoing, it would appear that the agricultural colleges of the various States have been a success, when consideration is taken of the time they have been organized, and the prejudice existing in many of our higher institutions of learning, not only against labor, agricultural or mechanical, but also against the establishment of agricultural colleges, as such, in which the farmer and mechanic might receive a thoroughly scientific and practical education for his calling. In our opinion, the indisputable facts herein contained, from such a source, should settle this question of success beyond controversy. As an example of good faith in the management, and sound common sense in the application of the grant to its purposes, we quote from the Hand-Book of the Kansas State Agricultural College:

1. We understand, the “industrial classes” to embrace all those whose vocations or pursuits ordinarily require a greater exercise of manual or mechanical, than of purely mental labor. It is impossible to draw a sharply defined line between the industrial and professional classes, for every occupation demands both mental and manual effort. But for the purpose of marking the general boundaries, which in our opinion, should divide agricultural from other colleges, we accept the recognized distinction between the mechanic or industrial, and the liberal arts as given by Webster; the industrial arts are those in which the hands and body are more concerned than the mind, the liberal arts are those in which the mind and imagination are chiefly concerned.

2. While not necessarily ignoring other and minor objects, the leading and controlling object of these institutions should be to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and