ANNUAL REPORT. 129 



the legally defined but unique and noble purpose of giving 

 advanced education to the producing classes, to secure their 

 elevation, and increase their wealth-producing power; was 

 adopted by Massachusetts, under bond to foster, maintain, 

 and provide for it : and it cannot be seriously said that this 

 basis is a credit to, or in keeping with, its high origin, or that 

 it can be very efficient in accomplishing its originally de- 

 signed work. The trustees act as the agents of the State, 

 and are ready at all times to obey its behests by employing 

 ^the means placed at their disposal, be they large or small, in 

 the best manner their judgment can direct to secure the 

 greatest and best possible results. But they cannot believe 

 that the very large expenditures made during the early years 

 of its history were enhanced by either extravagance or folly. 

 They accepted in good faith the clearly expressed ideas of 

 the originators of the college grant ; and, guided by the 

 detailed plan of the institution adopted by the Governor and 

 Council by the direction of the Legislature, they made an 

 earnest endeavor to provide for it in farm lands and build- 

 ings, dormitories and boarding-houses for students, structures 

 for recitation-rooms and other public purposes, physical, 

 chemical, and mathematical apparatus, and other appliances 

 for the lecture-room, to elucidate the facts of science, and to 

 convey knowledge, discipline, and culture to the pupil, — all 

 this in the direction of, but not above, or hardly equal to, 

 the model of it, which was exhibited in the Statutes of the 

 United States and Massachusetts. The total of the expendi- 

 tures for all these purposes was a large sum, but no larger 

 than should have been anticipated by the legislators, who 

 thoroughly discussed the objects to be attained, and adopted 

 the plan, but too large in the opinion of any one who con- 

 sidered the plan to be simply that of a manual-labor school 

 or one of an inferior grade. 



In some respects, also, the period from 1867 to 1873, when 

 the larger expenditures occurred, was very unfavorable. 

 The sums appropriated were estimated and recorded as dol- 

 lars ; but to the trustees they were not dollars of a value 

 currency. Neither could they be exchanged for a dollar of 

 real value in any of the details of the expenditure. Without 

 any choice on their part, tlie}^ were obliged to expend the 

 fixed sums at their disposal for the countless needs of their 



