128 AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



meiit and financial reform, and which made the Governor 

 and Council a commission to examine into the status of the 

 institution witli the intent of severing its connection with, 

 and releasing the State from, its obligations and guaranties 

 to the General Government respecting it, culminated in a 

 report to the Legislature of 1880, practically recommending 

 that the college, with all its real and personal estate, with its 

 trust funds received from the United States for its specific 

 support, be given to Amherst College, and further effort to 

 maintain it be abandoned. The phraseology of the resolve 

 creating tlie commission and defining its work was so pecul- 

 iar, that it had little or no discretionary power, and there 

 was no other course for it to take. Bat it was a measure so 

 radical and subversive of the integrity of the State, so for- 

 getful of the intent and design for which Congress gave its 

 endowment fund, that it not only met with no favorable pub- 

 lic response, but witli almost universal remonstrance, espe- 

 cially so by the agricultural portion of the community ; and 

 no effort was made by the Legislature to accept of the 

 jDroposal, or to give it legal force. It is charitable to believe 

 that the oriirinal authors of this measure had no intent to 

 destroy or injure the institution for the benefit of another, 

 but an honest purpose to relieve the tax burden of the Com- 

 monwealth. But the suspicion of such a purpose called out 

 the latent friendship and sympathies of farmers and the 

 friends of high education for agricultural pursuits, and 

 aroused them to a consciousness of the fact, tiiat, though 

 the college was the ward of the State, its perpetuity, power, 

 and infiuence could be enhanced by their active moral sup- 

 port. This effort to settle, or unsettle, the status of the 

 college, resulted in giving it strength. And it may be 

 reasonable to conclude that just this struggle was required 

 to permanently establish its relations to the State, and to 

 show that there must be a union of public and private duty 

 and responsibility, if it Avould attain the highest prosperity 

 and usefulness. 



The operations of the past year have demonstrated the 

 fact that the college can live, and secure, temporarily at 

 least, a certain measure of success on its present basis. But 

 we should remember that it was endowed by the Congress 

 of the United States, Avith the approval of the nation, for 



