No. 6 . DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 249 



THE LAND GRANT COLLEGE. 



In order that the place which the Farmers' Institute occupies in 

 the system of public education may be more clearly defined, I wish 

 to call your attention to the movement for the education of our 

 industrial population which began in 1862 when the Congress of the 

 United States appropriated public lands to the several states for 

 the establishing of colleges which should teach agriculture and the 

 mechanic arts. The statistical reports of these colleges for the 

 year ending June 30, 1904, show that sixty-five institutions have been 

 established from the proceeds of the sales of the public lands, and 

 that sixty-three offer courses of instruction in agriculture. They 

 represent an investment of about $72,000,000 ($72,540,588.11), and 

 had a total income that year of over $11,000,000 ($11,498,341.45). 



The number of persons in their faculties of agriculture and me- 

 chanic arts was 2,740. The total number of students in these insti- 

 tutions in all courses was 56,226, of which 15,641 were students in 

 agriculture, or its allied courses. 



There were 4,822 graduates in 1904, and up to that time almost 

 58,000 (57,909) had taken degrees in these colleges since their organi- 

 zation in 1862. Many of these students went into other occupa- 

 tions and professions, so that agriculture received but a compara- 

 tively small proportion of the total that the land grant colleges 

 have graduated. Many others, however, who attended these insti- 

 tutions, and for various reasons were prevented from completing 

 their college course, nevertheless were greatly benefited by their 

 attendance, and have since gone into agriculture and pursued it with 

 marked success. 



Although some work for the education of farming people in the 

 line of their specialty had been undertaken at earlier dates, yet 

 it was of a fragmentary and disconnected character. The act of 

 Congress of 1862 was practically the beginning of higher technical 

 education in agriculture in the United States. Forty-three years 

 have elapsed since the act passed, and yet these colleges could 

 scarcely be said to have settled down to a well organized and clearly 

 defined system of work until within the past twenty years. 



For the first twenty years they had to struggle for existence, and 

 during most of that period were scarcely recognized by the older 

 institutions of learning as being worthy of the name of college, but 

 were regarded as of a rather inferior grade of manual school. Now, 

 however, they stand in the front rank of the educational institutions 

 of the country, and are rapidly taking the lead in scientific progress 

 of the older colleges and universities that not long ago regarded 

 them with contempt. 

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