1891.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 245 



REPORT TO THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE HOARD OF AGRICULTURE ACTING 

 AS OVERSEERS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



[P. S., chap. 20, sect. 5, adopted by the Board Feb. 4, 1891.] 



The committee appointed by this Board to examine the 

 Agricultural College have the honor to submit their report 

 as follows. 



The Massachusetts Agricultural College, which has held 

 an honorable position among the institutions of learning for 

 more than twenty years, is still doing successful work, 

 increasing in strength and efficiency, and taking rank among 

 the first of its kind in this country. 



Acting in behalf of this Board (which is by law a Board 

 of Overseers of the college) , your committee beg leave to 

 mention some facts which perhaps may be familiar to some 

 of our associates as they have had opportunities to gain the 

 desired information ; but to those who have not made the 

 subject a study, a few words in regard to the purposes of the 

 college, and the manner in wlwch it was brought into exist- 

 ence, may be acceptable, although such facts have been 

 frequently mentioned before in our reports. 



In 1862 an act of Congress was passed, under the lead of 

 Hon. Justin S. Morrill, United States Senator from Vermont, 

 called the land grant act, donating public lands to such of 

 the States and Territories as should provide colleges for the 

 benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts, the grant to be 

 divided among the respective States and Territories, accord- 

 ing to the number of inhabitants. It was thought by leading 

 men in Congress and others interested in education upon a 

 broad basis, at the time this act was passed, that these 

 colleges would furnish a means of educating the industrial 



