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generous friend has been ready to pour thousands after thousands in 

 to her lap. 



The prescribed military instruction of these colleges, for each of 

 which a professor is now detailed from the United States army, fur- 

 nishes that measure of theoretical and practical knowledge necessary 

 for organizing and drilling companies in any future emergency of 

 our country, and its essential importance in a land where a merely 

 nominal standing army is maintained, can hardly be over-estimated, 

 especially if the officer detailed highly values his profession and has 

 executive ability. As an incident, the drill offers a healthful and 

 permanently beneficial discipline to students in promoting physical 

 development and a manly bearing, incomparably superior to that of 

 the gymnasium, or to that of any other athletic exercise or recrea- 

 tion. 



In the first argument made by me in 1858 in behalf of the Land- 

 Grant Colleges, I pointed out the fact that there was going on an an- 

 nual deterioration of the soil, as it appeared by the decennial census 

 reports, showing a less and less number of bushels of cereals pro- 

 duced per acre throughout nearly all of the states. This deteriora- 

 tion has not been arrested, though more vigilant attention is now giv- 

 en. to the subject, and it is to be feared will not be wholly arrested 

 until the scalping system of farming, or of cropping and returning 

 nothing, shall no longer be profitable upon old homesteads that are 

 to be abandoned with the hope of a future continuance of the sys- 

 tem upon .the present limited prairies of the West. In various por- 

 tions of Europe they are giving far more liberal aid to similar insti- 

 tutions than that which has been accorded in the United States ; and 

 they are there retaining the maximum fertility of their soil. There 

 is no subject to our people of pro founder concern, or of more far- 

 reaching importance. 



While it is true that the great profession of the law is most apt to 

 qualify men for prominent public positions, it is also true that the an- 

 nual supply in the legal profession is supposed to exceed the de- 

 mand, and that professional advancement is often provokingly slow ; 

 but we have it from the best authority that there is no overproduction 

 in the Land-Grant Colleges, that few of their graduates remain long 

 unemployed after leaving college. They are found in shops and on 

 farms, and their services are sought after as teachers, as engineers, 

 surveyors, foremen of shops and farms, superintendents of mines 

 and manufactories, and frequently they are called to lucrative posi- 

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