STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 201 



AN EVIL AND ITS REMEDY. 



This admirable course of study, thus briefly sketched by Professor 

 Owen, needs no comment; it sufficiently recommends itself. But it 

 demands what few of our collegiate institutions have — that museum, 

 apparatus, etc., which aid so greatly in the acquisition of knowledge by 

 presenting, through the senses, clear ideas to the mind. 



Why our institutions are deficient in these is obvious enough when we 

 look at their too great number. The educational means of the commu- 

 nity have been expended in building edifices, to the great detriment of 

 thorough instruction by the help of those agencies referred to by Mr. 

 Owen. Each State has its dozen of Colleges, and the apparatus, mu- 

 seum, library, etc., of all would be insufficient for one. Are these indus- 

 trial Colleges to be virtually destroyed by a like waste of means f 



What are these means ? The Act of Congress gives to each State a 

 quantity of land equal to thirty thousand acres for each Senator and 

 representative in Congress. A State that has unsold lauds within its 

 own borders may locate this grant ; but those that have not are to re- 

 ceive land scrip, which cannot be located by the State, but only by the 

 assignees of the State, at one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre. 

 When we reflect that the homestead law gives away the Public Lands to 

 actual settlers, and that no large bodies of good public farming lands 

 remain for entry, it is pretty clear that the fund from the grant to the 

 older States will be slowly realized, and then only at a great sacrifice. 

 The law ought to be so amended as to allow immediate location by all 

 of the States. Must the industrial classes wait for this slow realization of the 

 fund before Colleges so important to them can be established f And must they 

 be limited to an inadequate course of instruction, by reason of insufficiency of the 

 fund? No ! Kansas has so answered, and its admirable precedent should 

 be followed by all other States like situated. No ! Connecticut replies 

 by bestowing its grant of lands upon Yale College. The one answers 

 for the West, the other for the East. 



The new States of the West and Southwest have had donations granted 

 them by Congress for the establishment of Universities or Seminaries 

 of learning. Among these is Kansas, and wisely determining to con- 

 solidate and not dissipate its College funds, it has consolidated the grant 

 for both, merging the first one into the second, thus saving a useless 

 expense in building two edifices when one is all-sufficient, in having two 

 sets of Professors when only one is required, and by this economy secur- 

 ing a museum, apparatus, library, etc., so necessary for the proper 

 instruction of all occupations, whether professional or industrial. 



Under like grants, we have the following Universities : Ohio, at 

 Athens ; Indiana, at Bloomington ; Illinois, at Springfield ; Missouri, at 

 Columbia; Wisconsin, at Madison; Iowa, at Iowa City; Michigan, at 

 Ann Arbor. Since these Universities were established many others have 

 been, in these and other States, mostly by religious denominations, in 

 which is usually found such course of instruction as is adapted to pro- 

 fessional pursuits, but not to the industrial, for want of the museum, 

 apparatus, library, model farm, etc., mentioned by Mr. Owen. Why 

 retain these State Universities as competitors of these private Colleges ? 

 Why not render them efficient, economical, more truly State institutions, 

 by consolidating the grants, and thus creating a College competent to 

 the thorough education of all occupations ? The sound policy of such 



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