p 
410 STATE AGRICULTUEAL SOCIETY. 
congress “ donating public lands to the several states and ter¬ 
ritories which may provide colleges for the benefit of agricul¬ 
ture and the mechanic arts ” became a law and thus offered 
to each of the states not in actual rebellion the means of 
founding, or at least aid in founding, an institution of this 
class. Subsequently, congress very wisely amended the origi¬ 
nal act so as to enable all the states and territories, without 
regard to their status at any former period, to avail themselves 
of the benefits it offered. Of the state agricultural colleges in 
actual operation or in process of establishment at the date of 
the act of 1862, all except the agricultural college of New 
York, received from their respective states the national grants. 
But with those states in which no actual beginning had been 
made, the disposition of the grants involved so many difficult 
and perplexing questions, that even at the date of this writing 
those questions are still discussed in many of the states, and 
without prospect of immediate settlement. 
1. Shall we establish a separate and independent agricul¬ 
tural college^ like most ot those in the Old World and those of 
Michigan, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Massachussets and 
Kansas, already in operation ? 
2. Shall we found a separate industrial university^ like the 
new one just organized on the basis of the congressional dona¬ 
tion in the state of Illinois, or like the Cornell University, also 
founded upon the national bounty, joined with the princely 
gifts of the noble friend of education whose name it bears ? 
8. Shall we establish an independent college by the side of 
an existing literary college, for the advantage it may confer 
by the regulated use of libraries, laboratories, collections and 
scientific instruction already furnished ? 
4. Shall we bestow the gift upon some literary college ; and 
if so, upon what one ? 
5. Shall we bestow the grant upon some school of science 
or polytechnic school ? 
6. Shall we, by reorganization of our state university, create 
therein a college of agriculture and the mechanic arts in har¬ 
mony with the other departments ? 
