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The Land-Grant Colleges were founded on the idea that a higher 

 and broader education should be placed in every state within the 

 reach of those whose destiny assigns them to, or who may have the 

 courage to choose industrial vocations where the wealth of nations is 

 produced ; where advanced civilization unfolds its comforts, and 

 where a much larger number of the people need wider educational 

 advantages, and impatiently await their possession. The design was 

 to open the door to a liberal education for this large class at a cheaper 

 cost from being close at hand, and to tempt them by offering not only 

 sound literary instruction, but something more applicable to the pro- 

 ductive employments of life. It would be a mistake to suppose it 

 was intended that every student should become either a farmer or 

 mechanic when the design comprehended not only instruction for 

 those who may hold the plow or follow a trade, but such instruction 

 as any person might need with " the world all before them where 

 to choose " and without the exclusion of those who might prefer to 

 adhere to the classics. Milton in his famous discourse on education, 

 gives a definition of what an education ought to be, which would seem 

 to very completely cover all that was proposed by the Land-Grant 

 Colleges ; and Milton lacked nothing of ancient learning, nor did he 

 suffer his culture to hide his stalwart republicanism. He says : "I 

 call, therefore, a complete and generous education, that which fits a 

 man to perform justly, skilfully and magnanimously all the offices, 

 both private and public, of peace and war." 



It was not desired that literary colleges should be superseded, or 

 be in any sense dwarfed, as surely none of these elder colleges or 

 universities could have any reason to complain at the prospect of 

 an augmentation of the number of educated young men, nor could 

 they have any reason to complain but should rejoice when reinforced 

 by an additional corps of teachers though differently equipped 

 enlisted in the earnest labor of training men for the noblest ranks of 

 usefulness. There is room for all. Thorough culture is contagious. 

 One educated young man creates an educational epidemic in a whole 

 neighborhood. The only contention is that, in educational institu- 

 tions of the highest dignity, scholarship in useful learning should 

 stand as equal to scholarship in any other branch of education, and 

 I hope to be pardoned for believing that it will do as much to disci- 

 pline and to fashion as large a proportion in the hundred of men for 

 distinction in society, and to make them valuable citizens, as well as 

 authorities and ornaments in their respective vocations, entitling them 



