GENEEAL EEPOET. 
75 
prompted to act, are yet open to them, as well as to such states 
as have so unwisely and faithlessly allowed years to pass with¬ 
out doing anything in fulfillment of their pledges. 
It is an occasion for congratulation, that, with us, after a 
somewhat protracted struggle, the important questions neces' 
sarily preliminary to the actual establishment of such an insti¬ 
tution have been finally and wisely settled by its incorporation 
with the State University. The cause of industrial education 
doubtless enjoys the sympathy of many citizens of our State, 
who are still of the opinion that an entirely separate and dis¬ 
tinct agricultural school would have been better than anything 
likely to be realized under the present arrangement. It is 
hoped, however, that all such are sufficiently strong and 
genuine in the interest manifested in times past, to ensure at 
least a patient waiting for results and an impartial judgment 
after a fair trial has been made, and that many will even easi¬ 
ly forget their original preferences in the earnestness of their 
purpose and efforts to make the Agricultural College of Wis¬ 
consin a complete success. 
To have established a strictly professional school of agri¬ 
culture, or even of agriculture and the mechanic arts, would 
have been a palpable violation of the provisions of the con¬ 
gressional act, had it been desirable in itself; while to have 
attempted the establishment of a new and separate institution 
including all the required departments of instruction upon so 
slender a foundation as the proceeds of such sales of the col¬ 
lege lands as were likely to be effected within a few years, or 
even as the cash proceeds of the whole amount of lands, would 
have been absurd, because utterly impracticable. And inas¬ 
much as the State did not feel financially competent to add to 
the congressional endowment such sums of money as would be 
an adequate foundation, necessity combined with polic}^ in de¬ 
manding the consolidation of the proposed college of agricul¬ 
ture and the mechanic arts with some existing non-denomina- 
tional institution, of which class the State University was the 
only representative within our territorial limits. 
