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mand of the United states of America. one of the features of this training is 
the habit of obedience, which it Inculcates. I submit to every one of you 
gentlemen here 1 that obedience to law and wholesome submission to salutary 
restraint Is our of the great desiderata In the education of the young men of 
America. We are inclined to be somewhat lawless— we have the reputation of 
being lawless, in looking over the penal statistics of Great Britain, of the 
United States, Germany, and France, you will find that, unhappily, we are very 
largely In the ascendant with the percentage of crimes, the percentage of murder, 
the percentage of deeds of violence to which the habit of disobedience neces- 
sarily leads, as compared with any other civilized countries of the world. But 
we can make this military education in these several institutions auxiliary to 
the improvement in this respect, and. it seems to me, it would be well worth 
the expenditure of our time and worthy of our consideration and efforts. 
After some further discussion President Van Hise's resolution was adopted in 
modified form, as already given (p. G3). 
What Degrees Should Be Given for the Completion of Undergraduate 
Courses in Land-Grant Colleges? 
G. A. Harter, of Delaware, presented the following paper on this subject: 
The subject that has been assigned me by the programme committee to-day 
gives me peculiar satisfaction in that I shall be able to present my personal 
views instead of being required officially to announce a distasteful practice, 
as I must do in college publications and at college functions. 
" What degree shall be given for completion of undergraduate work in 
land-grant colleges? " has been asked by each of these institutions and has 
brought forth a great variety of answers. When these colleges were first 
organized there was no uniformity of conception among educators as to the 
work that they were meant to perform in the national educational economy. Pro- 
vision was made in the law approved by President Lincoln, July 5, 1862, for 
"'the maintenance of at least one college in each State where the leading 
objects shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies and 
including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related 
to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of 
the States may, respectively, prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and 
practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and 
professions in life." This was a time when the old forms of education were 
found to be inadequate for the training of men for the several pursuits of 
life, and new methods and new schools, wider in every sense than the old 
classical college, were springing up. The old college, with its Greek, Latin, 
mathematics, and modicum of science no longer filled the want of those who 
sought an education to train them to do things in the affairs of the world. 
The college was no longer looked upon as the place where boys should go 
to get preparation for entering the so-called "learned professions " only, but 
young men began to find that they could be fitted for other occupations that 
demanded as serious application of mental powers as were used by the 
preacher, the lawyer, or the doctor. The Morrill law of 1862 was but an 
expression of the great popular dissatisfaction with the old-fashioned college 
curriculum. It was an attempt to adjust the new education, as it was at that 
time understood, to meet the new requirements of the sciences in the college 
course to the training of the industrial classes. 
The historian of the future will point with pride to the sympathy of the 
T'nited States Government with this great popular demand for widening and 
deepening in every way the channels through which the various organized 
agencies of educational processes have laid hold of American life. 
Soon after the passage of the land-scrip bill, colleges were organized in 
every State, beneficiary of the provisions thus made for them. In some 
States they were established in connection with colleges already in existence, 
and new life was put into these old institutions by the enlarged opportunities 
made possible by widening their curricula and enriching their courses of study. 
In other States a new kind of college was founded in order to teach agricul- 
ture and the mechanic arts. In still other States the funds arising from the 
national grant were either applied to the founding of a State university or 
