10 



great as in ordinary schools and colleges, where it ought undoubtedly always to 

 be introduced under proper instruction. 



" The above may serve to convey to some extent tlie plan which had been in 

 my head for some time, but which had never assumed quite a definite form for 

 want of knowing the exact circumstances under which such a plan could be 

 worked out, and many details would of course depend upon tBat. For instance, 

 Congress may, in the grant, perhaps, prescribe a certain course ; the State, in 

 accepting, may prescribe. The community, in sending, may demand certain 

 things, but the above may, perhaps, at least serve for a basis on which any 

 one, knowing the circumstances, can work out the superstructure." 



AN EVIL AND ITS REMKDV. 



This admirable course of study thus briefly sketched by Professor Owen 

 needs no comment ; it sufficiently recommends itself. But it demands what few 

 of our collegiate institutions have — that museum, apparatus, &c., which aid so 

 greatly the acquisition of knowledge by presenting through the senses clear 

 ideas to the mind. 



Why our institutions are deficient in these is obvious enough when we look 

 at their too great number. The educational means of the community have been 

 expended in building edifices, to the great detriment of thorough instruction 

 by the help of those agencies referred to by Mr. Owen. Each State has its 

 dozen of colleges ; and the apparatus, museum, library, &c., of all, would be 

 insufficient for one. Are these industrial colleges to he virtually destroyed by a 

 like waste of means 1 



What are these means % The act of Congress gives to each State a quantity 

 of land eqiTal to 30,000 acres for each senator and representative in Congress. 

 A State that has unsold lands within its own borders may locate this grant ; but 

 those that have not are to receive land scrip, which cannot be located by the 

 State, but only by the assignees of the State, at Si 25 per acre. When we 

 reflect that the homestead law gives away the public lands to actual settlers, and 

 that no large bodies of good public farming lauds remain for entry, it is pretty 

 clear that the fund from the grant to the older States will be slowly realized, and 

 then only at a great sacrifice. The law ought to be so amended as to allow 

 immediate location by all of the States. Must the industrial classes wait for 

 this slow realization of the fund before colleges, so important to them, can he 

 established ; and must they he limited to an inadequate course of instruction,, hy 

 reason of insufficiency tf the fund 1 No ! . Kansas has so answered, and 

 its admirable precedent should be followed by all other States like situated. 

 No ! Connecticut replies by bestowing its grant of lands upon Yale College. 

 The one answers for the west, the other for the east. 



The new States of the west and southwest have had donations granted them 

 by Congress for the establishment of universities or seminaries of learning. 

 Among these is Kansas, and wisely determining to consolidate, and not dissi- 

 pate, its college funds, it has consolidated the grant for both, merging the first 

 one into the second, thus saving a useless expense in building two edifices when 



