54 



except with their express consent, he failed to suggest. Gov. 

 Long was too fast, whilst Gov. Talbot's council hesitated and felt 

 that the -project was impracticable and unworthy of Massachusetts. 

 For if the state cannot discard, how can it annex, and let the Agri- 

 cultural College, in the words of Gov. Long, become k ' a branch of 

 another college"? I have never been able to see how the state could 

 11 support and maintain " a college if it is made an annex to another 

 college. How can the state send its Board of Agriculture as over- 

 seers to another corporation? tl At least one college." If an agri- 

 cultural college, so called, is located in the vicinity of another college, 

 it still cannot be another college, unless it rests upon a separate 

 foundation, with independent and distinct professors throughout; 

 and if so, there can be no saving of expense, by any such conjunction 

 as can be made under the law. I understand that the various colleges 

 under Oxford and Cambridge Universities, each rest on distinct foun- 

 dations, each with a master answering to the president of our col- 

 leges, each with a full set of professors and tutors throughout, and a 

 chancellor overall. E pluribus unum. These considerations apply 

 with peculiar force to an agricultural college with a farm attached. 

 How annex to Oxford or Cambridge a farm of four hundred acres, 

 with a college upon it, without keeping that college upon an essen- 

 tially independent foundation ? Nothing resulted from either of these 

 projects, and the college is still' the child of the state, to be supported 

 by the state. 



All the governors of the Commonwealth but two, have been friendly 

 to the life of the college, and in 1883, when Gov. Butler took the 

 gubernatorial chair, he thought it better to feed and nourish it than 

 to put it out to nurse, or send it to some legislative Tewkesbury, and 

 did what he could to revive confidence in its success. 



It cannot be denied that in the minds of many friends there have 

 been some disadvantages in the location at Amherst, because of its 

 proximity to a classical college ; because it has been somewhat diffi- 

 cult of access, (a trouble which will soon be remedied) ; and because it 

 has not attracted the beneficent grants and bequests, which it might 

 have received if in the neighborhood of a great city. 



As to the first consideration, it is due to Amherst College to state 

 that the suggestion is made solely as to the relations, real or supposed, 

 between the two classes of students. Amherst college, on the con- 

 trary, has not only* scrupulously adhered to pledges made by its 

 president, Dr. Stearns, when the location of the Agricultural College 



