28 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



ble diseases among animals. With eighteen states at this hour quarantined 

 against the stock of other states in consequence of these diseases, it is import- 

 ant that we should have men educated specially in veterinary science: that we 

 have in considerable numbers persons skilled in the diseases of domestic animals, 

 and tluxt we no longer depend upon the limited acquirements of the old fashioned 

 "horse doctor." The last Legislature, w'ith commendable liberality, has afforded 

 the college the means to erect a building especially devoted to that scieti(;e, 

 with a museum and lecture room, with operating rooms and dissecting tables, 

 with manikin and skeletons and all the apparatus needed to illustrate the sub- 

 ject as fully as the best medical colleges illustrate the subjects of the diseases 

 of the human body. All the students in the agricultural course receive instruc- 

 tion in this science, and their interest in tlie lectures fully indicates their 

 appreciation of their importance. It is worthy of consideration whether a short 

 special course of two years in that and agriculture combined, with the re(iuirc- 

 ment of an advanced antecedent general education, might not meet a })opular 

 demand; a course that would be above "quackery" and still within reach of 

 many who cannot devote four full years to get what they want; a course that 

 would send out men who could write a prescription without misspelling, and 

 indite a common business communication in srood Ensrlish. 



THE MILITARY DEPARTMENT, 



also recently established, promises to be productive of good in an exercise and 

 drill that far excels in beneficial results all that can be claimed by the best 

 conducted gymnasiums. With a competent instructor detailed by the war de- 

 partment, with arms and accoutrements and ammunition donated by the United 

 States, the military feature bids fair to be attractive and useful. 



THE DEPARTMENT OF MECUANIO ARTS. 



The college, as before remarked, was established by the State purely as an 

 agricultural school; its sole intent was to ]iromote scientific agriculture. In 

 1862 the general government doiuited, under certain conditions, to each of the 

 States 30,000 acres of land for each senator and re])resentative in congress for 

 the "endowment, support, and maintenance of at least one college, where the 

 leading object 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." 



Under this act the State of Michigan received about 230,000 acres of land, a 

 little less than the round sum to which it was entitled, in consequence of the 

 shortage by actual sur\ey of the sections donated. The State accepted the 

 grant and in good faith promised to execute the trust. The grant was turned 

 over to the Agriculttiral College already established. By the terms of the grant 

 one of the functions of the trust was instruction in the mechanic arts, as im- 

 perative as that in agriculture, but inasmuch as the agricultural course was 

 already in full operation and the fund from thegrant wasslow in accumulating, 

 no effort was nuide until recently to comply with the full conditions of the gift. 

 Last winter the Legislature was appealed to for means to erect the buildings 

 and furnish the equi[)nient (which under the terms of the grant could not be 

 taken from the fund) for the department of mechanic arts. The response was 

 hearty, and an appropriation ample for the initiative of the new course was 



