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expressed a profound interest. There was no effort to set up n standard for 
these colleges and demand of the public that they should meet that standard. 
The truth is the colleges were to meet a condition. This makes it all the more 
Imperative that the question should always be a local our. in some states 
where rural education and village education lias reached a high degree of eili- 
ciency the colleges mighl well take a stand and he justified in it. that would be 
thoroughly unjustifiable in less favored states, or where the elementary educa- 
tion is not so well organized. 
ill In conclusion I may say that the only rule by which we can he guided 
in such cases would he an honest effort to meet the conditions of the State in 
which the college is located. I believe it to Ik 1 the duty of these colleges 1" use 
their influence t<> Improve these conditions as rapidly as possible. Such improve- 
ment would relieve the college of some work now necessary and give it oppor- 
tunity to become more efficient in the designated fields of agriculture ami 
mechanic arts. This condition forms a solid argument on the pari of these 
colleges in appealing to their several States for maintenance and development 
of a system of rural education which will make the colleges more efficient. 
Already a movement in the interest of agriculture in the rural schools has made 
some progress. This is representative of what may he done when an interest 
has been aroused anions: the people which shall result in such preparation as 
will make them hetter able to take full advantage of their colleges of agriculture 
and mechanic arts. 
R. W. Stimson. of Connecticut. Let me emphasize one or two points which 
have heen raised in the paper to which we have just listened. 
What did Congress intend The agricultural colleges to he? The second 
Morrill Act was passed for the further endowment and support of the land- 
grant colleges. I have read very carefully all of the debates and discussions 
in connection with the passage of the act. and I can not find a serious attack 
upon the land-grant colleges as they then existed. In case of some of the 
colleges and departments connected with other institutions there was serious 
dehate and some criticism on the ground that land-grant money was being used 
for teaching suhjects which were not obviously and immediately for the henefit 
of agriculture and the mechanic arts. There was no good reason why the 
Federal Government should give more money, therefore, for duplicating means 
of education which could he had in other institutions as well as in the land- 
grant colleges. There was no criticism cf the grade of instruction, nor of the 
curriculum of the land-grant colleges. 
Now. the land-grant colleges in 1800 had no uniform standard of entrance 
requirements. Some were requiring a part of a high-school course for admis- 
sion. The vast majority of them, however, were admitting their students 
directly from the common schools to the college course. If that is true, and if 
the act says that the act of 1800 was passed for the further endowment and 
support of the land-grant colleges, is it not clear we may teach anything we 
please so far as grade of instruction is concerned, and provided only we keep 
the specified suhjects? It seems to me that the affirmative is true on that 
point. 
It seems to me that the history of the land-grant colleges since 1800 has heen 
largely a repetition of the history of those institutions hetween 1802 and 1890; 
that is. that we have practically the same sort of institutions to-day as then 
existed. That would seem to indicate that Congress was right in not criticising 
these institutions and in spending money for the further endowment and sup- 
port of this style and grade of education. In the discussions and dehates of 
Congress on these measures. I think you would find that the term "school" 
and the term " institution " were used quite as often as the term "college." On 
the whole, then. I am forced to the conclusion that Congress intended that we 
should teach what the land-grant colleges had been teaching prior to 1800. and 
that therefore we have a free hand in doing so. 
