teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts." Various interpretations have been put upon this act. In some cases State universities have been founded, in other cases old State universities have been endowed; sometimes the school which has been established is almost entirely an agricultural school, in other cases it is almost entirely an institution for technical instruction. In Missouri an institution already in existence was charged with the agricultural branch of the work and an institute of technology established in another part of the State, while in Massachusetts an institute of technology already in being was intrusted with work of giving technical instruction and an agricultural college established at a distance. But whatever differences in organization may appear, owing to the generality of the terms of the act or inadvertency, this much remains— that these schools have never been anything but schools of agricultural, and mechanical engineering. The trade school of Europe-the school for the common people, the caste school, the school for the "industrial classes”—has no or next to no following in America. VI. The first attempt to investigate and in a measure, probably, to coordinate the work of the schools established for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts was made by this Bureau. Commissioner Eaton had the fortune to secure the services of an agent in the person of Prof. D. C. Gilman, who reported at some length upon their condition, advising that a report such as his own be made at least once in ten years. At the date of his report, November 1, 1871, 28 States of the 34 having received the land grant were known to have taken definite steps toward the establishment of such colleges as the act of Congress in 1862 contemplated. Those efforts had been usually put forth in good faith, but in some States the unsettled condition of affairs, and in others vague notions respecting the possibility of securing the end in view had been a disturbing factor. A great difficulty had been experienced in securing the services of accomplished and able men as professors in the departments of science of the institutions, which to Professor Gilman appeared to be one of the greatest obstacles which impede the success of the new movement. In almost every State the national grant had been added to the funds of some existing institution, in order that by the concentration of resources greater power may be acquired; but almost invariably, in cases, the Congressional funds, with others, expressly given for scientific purposes, have been separately invested and employed, so that they may not be diverted to classical or literary studies. The reporter deprecates the use of the term agricultural colleges, and hopes that something more proper as well as generic will be adopted, such as "national," " governmental," or "United States," as a prefix for a class of colleges so largely indebted to the Congressional endowment. The first want felt in the establishment of this class of schools was the education of men of science to man them, but the first purpose for which they were established was the instruction of able, educated, trustworthy technologists, such as well-informed engineers, architects, mechanicians, manufacturers, miners, agriculturists, and the like for which the country was at that time loudly calling. The third need was the education of skillful laborers, men who add to dexterity and muscular ability an appreciation of their work, an acquaintance more or less profound with the nature of the materials, the natural laws underlying the manufacturers' processes, etc. It was safe to say that at the date of 1871 in all the institutions enjoying the benefit of the act of 1862, the second or technological need was being met. Some of the institutions also appear to have had closely in mind the wants of those who are to labor with their hands upon the farm and in the workshop, and there was one or more in which the presence of a post-graduate Now president of the Johns Hopkins University, but then a professor in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, his report for the Bureau being "vacation work." course indicated a desire to supply men of science. In other institutions agriculture predominated over the mechanic arts, and this variation seemed to Professor Gilman to be about to be made more manifest in the future, and he regarded it on the whole, as desirable that cach national college should have an office and aim of its own based upon a careful study of the want of the State in which it is located. In regard to agriculture, Professor Gilman observes: "There is no doubt that many of those who urged upon Congress the bestowal of a grant of land to the several States were deeply interested in the culture of the soil. There is also no doubt that in many cases the end to be gained was better understood than the means which should be employed, or, in other words, that the theory of agriculture was vaguely worked out." As to the military feature of the law of 1862, Professor Gilman found that it had given a great deal of trouble, and, as far as his observation had gone, in most of the States the repeal would be welcome. VII. Professor Gilman was perfectly correct in prognosticating that as time elapsed the institutions he had reported upon would tend to direct their energies along one certain line rather than another. The absolute necessity of making a good secondary education the base of a good technological education, every where recognized-in Germany, England, and France-the inability of the country boy to get such an education at home, the literary character of the corps of the instructors, all tended to make secondary instructions, properly so called, play a very important part in this class of institutions, especially in those which had been connected with a higher institution of learning. Technology was rescued from the fate of agriculture by the wave of enthusiasm for manual training and the happy exhibition at the Centennial Exposition of the Stroganoff School of Della Vos's scheme of manual instruction without a view to remuneration. But agriculture lagged behind until Congress again camo to its aid by passing two laws, one known as the Hatch Act and the other as the Morrill Act. These and the law of 1862, to which they are supplementary, are the financial foundation of the schools created for the "liberal and practical education of the industrial classes" and thereby "for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts." A conspectus of these laws is given for convenience of reference. Federal laws regarding institutions created by the act of 1862 and modified or enlarged by those of 1887 and 1890. Ten per cent or less of the entire gross proceeds of The interest of the entire remaining gross proceeds An annual report shall be made regarding the prog- There may be expended out of the first annual ap- There shall be established under the direction of the The amounts annually received by each designated An annual report shall be made by the president of 3. The conditions attached to the grant. The State legislature must formally accept the grant 3. Conditions attached to the subsidy. The legislature of each State must formally accept Each station shall annually, on or before February 1, Bulletins shall be published by each station at least 3. The conditions attached to the subsidy. The State legislature must formally accept the grants, 4. Federal jurisdiction. The Secretary of the Interior is charged with the VIII. The tendency at present manifested by the institutions founded on the sale of public lands is one of separation from the literary institutions with which, in Eng. land at least, at the present day, it is thought advisable that they should be conjoined. We have seen how slowly in the past our large existing institutions absorbed the conception that the empirical laws of nature should have a footing on the platform occupied by the subjects occupied more particularly with the ideal conception of what a man ought to be as distinguished from what, under the given conditions of his age, he is, and it seems evident that as the German, Hecker, in establishing his realschulen, about the middle of the last century, was obliged to place them in opposition as it were against the classical colleges of his native land, and as Jefferson was obliged to found a new university, so the endowments given by Congress have endeavored to divorce themselves from a connection with institutions more particularly based on the pedagogical conceptions of the Renaissance or Reformation. In no other countries of the world has education been left more to local initiative than in the United States and England. In neither is there a minister of public instruction, as in continental countries, and in neither is anything more obnoxious and irritating than a fussy interference by the General Government with local concerns. But in both the General Government has been appealed to for aid in establishing technical education. One country has given "public lands," the other its "whisky money," for the "practical and liberal education of the industrial classes." But here the similitude ceases. In America the technical departments are "overshadowed by the literary departments of the institutions with which they are connected;" in England the universal complaint before the late secondary education commission was that by exacting fifteen hours a week for instruction in science literary instruction was being pushed to the wall. This difference is to be attributed to one of two things, or rather to both, more or less, in combination. The English grant is a capitation payment given on results obtained and witnessed to by the inspectors and passed on by the examiners of the science and art department at London; the original American grant was outright; the other cause is the difference in grade of the English and American literary instruction conjoined with technical instruction as here considered, the American literary instruction being higher. At home we have the president of one of our most promising technological institutions observing in a report to this Bureau that if agricultural and mechanical colleges could receive like recognition from the State that the State classical institutions do it would be far better that such institutions as his own should be separated, but if the State classical college is permitted to do technical work, and thus compete with the technological college, it might be better to have them united. By an answer of this kind we are landed in the domain of educational economics. It is asserted by two of our correspondents that the answer to the question of separation depends upon the financial conditions in each State, and that the best interest of the technical school as a machine of instruction may be subserved by independence, but its existence would be precarious without affiliation with the treasury of the State university. But the conflicting claims are in general these: Elevated atmosphere of the humanities. Economy of general expenses. Frigidity of that atmosphere. Predilections of staff for literary work. Temptation to divert land-grant money to literary department necessities. The direct solution of questions of this kind is not within the power of legislation or of any other form of exterior control. Our old colleges not only were not specifically for the educatiou of the "industrial classes" (whatever that may mean in 1 So called from its being the "excise revenue," £750,000 annually. 2 Meaning in England parents receiving from any source less than £400 annually ($2,000). |