368 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



The other amendment which he would propose related to the regu- 

 lations for the admission of students into the various departments of 

 the Institution. He proposed to take the students from the different 

 States and Territories of the United States, according to their repre- 

 sentation in Congress, so that they shall not all be taken from Virginia, 

 Maryland, and this District, as had been the case in regard to all other 

 appointments. Heretofore nine-tenths of all appointments had been 

 made from this District and the neighboring States. Other States 

 had been blotted out from the vocabulary of appointments. There 

 was a bill before the House to do this, but it was impossible to reach 

 it, obstacles being thrown in the way whenever it was attempted. 

 While we were passing laws for creating more public institutions, it 

 was proper to make a proviso that the persons benefited by it should 

 be taken from every portion of the Union instead of one locality. 

 With proper modifications he was disposed to vote for this bill. 



Mr. D. P. King had some amendments, he said, to propose to the 

 bill at a proper time. In establishing an institution like this, for the 

 increase and diffusion of knowledge among men, there ought undoubt- 

 edly to be some arrangement for the education of teachers. He would 

 propose that lands and buildings be provided for young men to enable 

 them to prepare for such an education as will qualify them for use- 

 fulness and to teach others. He proposed that persons should be 

 received who, by their labor, would maintain themselves. He was 

 desirous of promoting the interests of the yeomanry of the country — 

 of cultivating the hand as well as the head and heart — and he hoped 

 provisions for these objects would be made in the bill. He should 

 move to insert in the seventh section, after the word "professors" the 

 words '""of agriculture." A very large portion of the people were 

 agriculturists, and it was the most useful and interesting object of 

 pursuit. He wished to provide for the use of those who became 

 students lands and buildings, with a view to enable them to engage 

 in practical agriculture. 



He was not disposed, at this time, to go into the subject fully, but 

 he submitted that the best mode of carrying out the objects of the donor 

 was to promote agricultural knowledge. 



Mr. R. D. Owen had a few words to say in reply to the gentleman 

 from Ohio [Mr. Sawyer], who had urged that the rate of interest should 

 be 5 instead of 6 per cent. He would ask the committee generally 

 whether, in regard to a perfect gratuity — a fund for public objects to 

 which this Government had not contributed one cent — we ought not 

 to be willing to pay as large an interest as we were ordinarily obliged 

 to pay on loans ^ Ought we not to yield something to the object of the 

 bequest ? 



It must also be considered that by this bill much expense was saved 

 to the Government. Should this plan be carried out it would save all 

 the expenses attending the preservation of the collections of theexplor- 



