408 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE 



So it is usually with legislation connected with educational matters. 

 The establishment of public schools was opposed b}' a large portion of 

 the community. "If a man wishes to educate his children, let him pay 

 for it; it is not right to tax the public for his benefit," said the objectors. 

 Later, when high schools were established, the same arguments were 

 used, slightly modilied. "It is all right to teach a boy the three R's," 

 said the}', "but the public should not be taxed for teaching him the higher 

 branches." This argument against the high schools is still occasionally 

 heard, but it has never, so far as I know, prevailed to such an extent as 

 to cause the abandonment of a single high school in any part of our 

 country after it has been established. The Morrill land grant act of 

 1862, through which the general government presented to the several 

 states millions of acres of the public lands to aid in the establishment 

 of schools of agriculture and the mechanic arts, was so little appreciated 

 in some of the states that the proceeds of the sale of the lands were 

 frittered away or badly administered, so that the benefits derived from 

 the act have been far less than they should have been. I am glad to 

 know that this is not the case in the State of Michigan and that the 

 grant of the government has been so well administered that the pres- 

 ent annual revenue from it is |42,000, or more than four times as much 

 as is contributed this year by the taxation of the people of the State, 

 while the United States supplementary grant of 1890 contributes |22,000 

 additional. Thus $64,000 of the revenue of this College is due to the 

 far-seeing and beneficent paternalism of the United States government 

 and only $10,000 to the State of Michigan. This latter burden of tax- 

 ation upon the people of the State is so heav}', as is stated in a recent 

 number of the College Eecord, that a property owner whose property 

 is assessed at |4,000 pays a little less than four cents a year to the 

 College. This burden, however, is so heavy in the opinion of the editor 

 of a Michigan country newspaper, that he w^ould be willing to sacrifice 

 the College to get rid of it. He says: "This institution should be merged 

 into the State University, to the end that the .$.3,000,000 tax may be 

 whittled down. Were the voters of Michigan permitted to take action 

 upon the matter they would either vote for consolidation or the wiping 

 out of the expensive Lansing concern altogether." I have no doubt that 

 the editor represents the opinion of only a small portion of the least 

 intelligent of the community, and that his statement is a slander on the 

 voters of Michigan. The support of higher education has never gone 

 backward in the United States, and it is inconceivable that the State of 

 Michigan, which was wise enough 46 years ago to put- in its constitution 

 a provision for founding its Agricultural College, will ever be so foolish 

 as to abandon it. 



The College is here, and is here to stay, but although it is nearly 40 

 years old, has, as far as I can judge, an ample endowment, good loca- 

 tion, splendid equipment, well qualified teachers, and an admirable 

 system of instruction, free tuition and very low expense for board, every- 

 thing, in fact, which such a college should have, it is still so far in advance 

 of the times and of the popular sentiment, that it is not appreciated as 

 it should be by the citizens of the State in general and by the farming 

 community in particular. The proof that there is such a want of appre- 

 ciation is this single statistical fact: the College has in its agricultural 

 department 269 students, of whom 89 are from outside of Michigan, 



