4 I4 



SCIENCE. 



new light within them, they were literally enslaved to them- 

 selves and could not escape. They began to sink in pub- 

 lic esteem. Their graduates failed conspicuously in 

 competition in all the affairs of life with self-made men. 

 Finally, in view of this disparity between the demand and 

 supply of industrial and scientific instruction in America, 

 a far-seeing and generous business man, Stephen Van 

 Renssellaer by name, came forward with private means, 

 and became the first to endow, in America, a " school of 

 theoretical and applied science." This was done in 1824, 

 and it is located at Troy, New York. Twenty years later 

 the first voluntary effort was made within one of the old 

 church colleges of America to regulate the curriculum so 

 as to conform to the new demands, aud although pushed 

 by one of the ablest educators of America, Francis Way- 

 land, in his own institution, and with his own denomina- 

 tion, at Brown university, the movement ended in a con- 

 spicuous defeat of the " new education." After the 

 successful establishment of the Troy Polytechnic Insti- 

 tute, the example of Van Renssellaer was followed in 

 Connecticut by Joseph E. Sheffield in the founding of the 

 Sheffield Scientific school, which became attached to, but 

 by no means recognized as co-ordinate with, the old line 

 course in Yale college. This was in i860. In 1847, soon 

 after the failure of Dr. Wayland at Brown University, 

 Abbot Lawrence endowed the Lawrence Scientific school 

 at Harvard college. 



About this time the legislature of the new States of 

 the West began to express the sentiments of the people. 

 In Illinois conventions met in 1851 to consider such 

 means as might be deemed expedient to further the 

 interests of an agricultural community, and to take steps 

 toward the establishment of an agricultural college. 

 They met not as Presbyterians, or Methodists, or Ro- 

 manists, but as an agricultural community. The next 

 year petitions were sent to Congress for the endowment 

 of industrial universities in each State. In 1850 the 

 agricultural college of Michigan was provided for by the 

 State constitution, and went into operation in 1855. The 

 scientific course of the University of Michigan was 

 ordered by the State legislature in 185 1 . In 1858 Iowa 

 appropriated money for a model farm and an agricultural 

 college. In Kentucky, under the guide of Regent Bow- 

 man, an institution, chartered in 1858, had been estab- 

 lished for " diffusing education among the industrial 

 classes." In Pennsylvania an agricultural college was 

 established m 1854, and in Maryland in 1856. In New 

 York, as early as 1837, a project for establishing an 

 agricultural college at Albany was entered upon and a 

 site was selected. This resulted in failure. It was re- 

 vived in 1844, and again failed through the death of a 

 liberal friend of the enterprise ; but in 1856 the State 

 Agricultural Society of New York induced the legisla- 

 ture to appropriate $40,000 for a college of agriculture. 

 This institution was established at Ovid, and died when 

 the war of the rebellion broke out in 1861. The Peo- 

 ple's College, at Havana, N. Y. ( intended entirely for the 

 industrial classes, was at first offered the national agri- 

 cultural land grant of New York State, but failing to 

 comply with the conditions imposed by the legislature, 

 this fund was passed to Cornell University at Ithaca. 

 These institutions, all established prior to the year 1862, 

 when Congress passed and the President approved the 

 great educational land grant law had come into exist- 

 ence in compliance with the demands of modern civiliza- 

 tion, and not at the instance of the church colleges, but 

 often in the face of obstacles and discouragements 

 thrown in their way by the church schools. But Presi- 

 dent John says that the " facilities of higher education 

 existed in this country, and met all demands, before State 

 colleges were thought of." With the single exception of 

 Yale College and Hamline University at Red Wing, 

 which established a so-called " Scientific Department," 

 the former in 1846 and the latter in 1857, not one of the 

 church colleges, so far as I have been able to learn, 



showed the first symptom of knowing, much less recog- 

 nizing, the difference in educational need between the 

 age of Bacon and that of Lincoln. 



The soil, therefore, was all ready for the seed. The 

 bill introduced by Mr. Morrill of Vermont was vetoed by 

 conservative Buchanan. Passed again at the instance of 

 Mr. Wade, with only seventeen opposing votes, it was 

 signed by President Lincoln on the 2d of July, 1862. It 

 has been said that times of war witness the birth of great 

 ideas and the initiation of great enterprises. It is true 

 that in the United States, with the establishment, through 

 rivers of blood, of the national idea, was also established 

 the idea of higher education by the State as one of the 

 justifiable means, in a republic, of self-defence and self- 

 perpetuation. 



This is all passed now, nearly two decades ago. If 

 we proceed to inquire what has been its effect, we shall 

 be able to answer another of President John's surprising 

 statements. Is the design of the law establishing these 

 industrial colleges by Congress, " a conspicuous and uni- 

 versally acknowledged failure ? " 



One of the first effects of this land grant by Congress 

 was an awakening in the church colleges, then existing, 

 to the value of the public domain as an educational 

 agency. This was so rapid, and so great, that some of them 

 succeeded in capturing the whole fund almost before the 

 people knew it had been given to them. In others, along 

 with a compliance with the terms of the act, the State 

 demanded representation on the controlling board ; but 

 in most cases the church colleges were passed by, and 

 new institutions were founded by the various States, 

 though still, in many cases, combined with some other 

 State or private fund. 



In the second place, this law, which has so positively 

 been pronounced a failure, brought into existence up to 

 1876, about forty schools of agriculture and mechanic 

 arts, often styled national schools of science. These have 

 come into existence since 1862 — except in three States 

 where similar institutions had already been endowed by 

 State funds. In some cases also the fund was applied by 

 the State legislatures to rejuvenate weakly scientific insti- 

 tutions, or further endow those that were flourishing. In 

 the meantime, since 1862, the various churches of the 

 United States had founded, _up 101876, 106 denomination- 

 al schools. Some of these are based on broad foundations, 

 and, like Hamline University, offer the student the most 

 complete scientific as well as classical and literary cul- 

 ture. While the national schools of science are mainly 

 confined to their own sphere — the primary intent of the 

 law creating them — the new church schools cover all the 

 fields of knowledge. It cannot certainly be unjust to 

 them to compare their patronage by the youth of the 

 country, with that received by the State schools. This, 

 perhaps, will throw some light on the question of their 

 asserted failure. 



The 106 denominational colleges, established between 

 1862 and 1876, both inclusive, as reported by the Com- 

 missioner of Education, are found to be giving instruc- 

 tion to 13,757 students, including all departments, pre- 

 paratory and undergraduate, in all branches of know- 

 ledge, from theology to chemistry and engineering, giving 

 them an average of 130 students for each institution. Of 

 these students, 9,066 are reported as in the preparatory 

 (or secondary) grade of study, an average of 85 for each 

 institution ; and 4,691 are reported in undergraduate 

 studies — an average of 44 for each institution. 



Taking the same authority for the statistics of the forty 

 State schools of agriculture and mechanic arts, and in- 

 cluding only those students that are strictly in those de- 

 partments, wherever a pre-existing college received the 

 congressional grant, we find 4,891 students, which gives 

 an average of 122 for each institution. Of these, 631 

 are reported in preparatory (or secondary) courses, 

 and 4,260 in the undergraduate courses of study. This 

 gives the state schools an average of 16 in the prepara- 



