LECTURES AND ESSAYS READ AT INSTITUTES. 181 



institution has not been improved through criticism, it certainly has had 

 ample opportunity, for it has surely had its full share. 



Some of these objections however are made so frequently and in so public a 

 manner that it may be well to refer to them before considering in a more spe- 

 cific manner the work of the college. 



I should not be surprised if some of you may have heard it objected to the 

 Agricultural College that it is too expensive. There are certain newspapers in 

 the State that during every session of the Legislature feel called upon to reit- 

 erate the assertion that the Agricultural College costs the State more, in pro- 

 portion to the number of students attending it, than any similar institution. 



I do not wish to controvert newspaper statements, for in the first place it is 

 ant to be a very one-sided controversy, and in the next place I think news- 

 papers generally try to represent things as they believe them to exist, and in 

 the third place, public institutions are proper subjects of criticism by our 

 newspaper press. However, when it is said that the Agricultural College is 

 more expensive to the State as per student than other similar institutions, 

 the assertion is one which it is very difficult either to prove or to disprove. One 

 reason of this is that we have no similar institution in the State. The Normal 

 School course, being almost entirely literary, is very different from ours, while 

 its direct relation to the profession of teaching in the common and graded 

 schools of the State, secures for it a large number of students of both sexes. 

 Then the University, when the cost of its students to the State is given, does 

 not give merely those in the literary and scientific courses, but the whole num- 

 ber of its students including those in the study of law, medicine, dentistry, 

 and pharmacy. These last named courses include a large proportion of the 

 students at the University, and involve no expense to the State, while some of 

 them it is claimed are a source of revenue. 



On the other hand, the course of instruction at the Agricultural College is a 

 strictly scientific course, which, in the very nature of things is, and always will be, 

 expensive, as compared with a literary or classical course. Instructon in the nat- 

 ural sciences, as now given, involves a large expenditure for cabinets, museums, 

 books of reference, apparatus, etc. Those who have had the management of 

 the college, believing that what it is proper to do at all, should be done well, 

 have asked of the Legislature, from time to time, for what they believed to 

 be necessary in order that the institution might be properly equipped for its 

 work in the way of buildings, apparatus, specimens, etc., and the Legislature 

 has generously, and in every instance, made the appropriations asked for, and 

 the result is that to-day we have in the Agricultural College of Michigan, an 

 institution as thoroughly equipped in the line of its work, as any institution 

 of the land; and I assure you that if your sous go there and graduate from 

 that college, having made the best use of their time while there, they will 

 have obtained an education that cannot be surpassed in real worth for the 

 same outlay of time and money, by attending any other college in this or any 

 other country. 



So much for the individual student; but now let me give some facts and 

 figures with reference to the cost of this work to the State, and let me pre- 

 face this statement by saying that I have taken as the basis of it the year 

 which makes the worst possible showing for the college, viz. : the fiscal year 

 closing with the 30th of September, 1883, as during that year there was a 

 decrease in the number of students as compared with previous years, while 

 two distinct departments, viz., Horticulture and V^eteriuary, were organized, 

 necessitating the employment of two additional professors. 



