THE 
 
 /__ . . 
 
 ■iQ: 
 
 
 
 MORRILL LAND GRANT. 
 
 A MEMORIAL ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, 
 JUNE 21st, 1887, AT THE CELEBRATION OE THE TWENTY- 
 FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 THE ACT. 
 
 
 . ' A 
 
 
 
 
 Charles Kendall Adams, LL. D., 
 President of Cornell University. 
 
 AMHERST, MASS.: 
 
 J. E. Williams, Book and Job Printer. 
 
 1887 . 
 

 
 
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MORRILL LAND GRANT. 
 
 A MEMORIAL ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, 
 JUNE 21st, 1887, AT THE CELEBRATION OF THE TWENTY- 
 FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 THE ACT. 
 
 Charles Kendall Adams, LL. D., 
 
 President of Cornell University. 
 
 AMHERST, MASS.: 
 
 J. E. Williams, Book and Job Printer. * 
 
 1887 . 
 
MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 
 
 THE MORRILL LAND GRANT. 
 
 It was a remarkable evidence of the confidence and the composure 
 of our federal legislature that in 1862, just twenty-five years ago, 
 they were able to give their thoughts to the framing of that far- 
 reaching act, in commemoration of which we are to-day assembled. 
 It was at one of the most anxious, if not one of the darkest periods 
 of our terrible war. The first great organized advance of the feder¬ 
 al forces was just coming to a disastrous end. The Peninsula Cam¬ 
 paign in which were centered all the nation’s hopes had taken time 
 for the most complete preparation in order that no repulse might be 
 possible. Fair Oaks, G-aines Mill, Mechanicsville, Cold Harbor, 
 Malvern Hill,—names that even now send a shudder into thousands 
 of American homes,—had followed in rapid succession, and our baf- 
 Ailed army took up its retreat on the second of July, the very day on 
 which, by the signature of the President, the act in which we have 
 rS now so much interest, became a law. Little did the people think 
 that at the very moment they were watching, with bated breath and 
 tearful eyes for every new sign of success or repulse, there was go¬ 
 ing forward to completion in the halls of legislation at the National 
 ^ Capitol, a great act of statesmanship which in after years would 
 y bring the people together, as we are assembled here to-day. 
 
 ,1 And yet a great act of statesmanship it was. In the few moments 
 5 I shall detain you it will be my effort to show that its spirit was con¬ 
 ceived in accordance with the best traditions of our country, that its 
 
4 
 
 provisions were in harmonious accord with the general spirit of the 
 time, and that it was fraught with the means of incalculable advan¬ 
 tage to the nation. To these three considerations, then, 1 briefly in¬ 
 vite your attention. 
 
 Within the last twenty-five years the policy of rendering national 
 and state aid to educational institutions has sometimes been gravely 
 questioned. It has been asserted that the work of education, in any 
 other than a purely elementary sense, should be left to the care of 
 private benevolence. This, however, was not the doctrine of the 
 fathers. As was so eloquently shown fifty years ago, when the ora¬ 
 tor selected to represent Harvard, and Amherst, and Williams plead¬ 
 ed the cause of the colleges before the Legislature of Massachu¬ 
 setts, it was the states acting in their organized capacity, that pro¬ 
 vided for the means of higher education as well as for the common 
 schools. 
 
 Look at the facts of that early history. Years before the famous 
 common school law was passed, provision had been made for the 
 founding of a college, by means of a tax levied upon the whole peo¬ 
 ple of the Colony. As Mr. Everett said, scarcely had the feet of 
 the Pilgrims taken hold of Plymouth Rock, when a year’s rate of the 
 Colony was levied in order that the higher learning might have a 
 home in the New World. Nor was the child of this parentage left 
 to any such precarious support as might be afforded by private be¬ 
 nevolence. The Court Records of Massachusetts in the colonial 
 period are sprinkled over with evidences of the most solicitous care. 
 It was in the days of poverty. The subsistence of the president 
 and the professors or tutors, as they were then called, was immedi¬ 
 ately dependent on the bounty of the commonwealth. Appropria¬ 
 tions for buildings and for lands were from time to time made. The 
 income of the ferry between Boston and Cambridge was appropriated 
 by the General Court to the use of the college. The legislature se¬ 
 lected the controlling board. In short, Harvard College was an in¬ 
 stitution of the government, founded bv it, supported by it and con¬ 
 trolled by it. Before the days of independence arrived, more than 
 a hundred different statutes had been spread upon the legislative 
 record for the purpose of guiding and assisting this child of the in¬ 
 fant state. Even in the constitution of 1780 it was declared forever 
 to be the duty of the legislature to encourage higher learning and 
 especially the University at Cambridge. And it was not until the 
 sons of the college had multiplied and grown rich, that the legisla- 
 
5 
 
 ture said to them as late as 1865 : you can now care for your benig¬ 
 nant mother better than I can, therefore I pension her off and en¬ 
 trust her fortunes to your generous keeping. 
 
 The policy of Massachusetts was the policy of Connecticut. 
 Long before Eliliu Yale gave the final impulse for the founding of 
 the college which was to bear his name, the General Court had care¬ 
 fully'considered the establishment of such an institution. The sub¬ 
 ject was postponed from time to time, not because there was any 
 question as to the propriety of founding such an institution ; but be¬ 
 cause the population was as yet too sparse and too poor to furnish the 
 pupils for two colleges in New England. And so it was not till more 
 than sixty years had passed after the founding of Harvard that the 
 second New England College was established. But after its estab¬ 
 lishment its history was much like that of its elder sister. During 
 the whole of the last century, as the first President Dwight has said 
 in his History, it was to the bounty of the Legislature of Connecticut 
 that the support of Yale College was chiefly due. Again and again 
 all other resources failed. It was the legislature that erected old 
 Connecticut Hall and gave to it the name of its benefactor. 
 
 Then look at the history of Dartmouth. The college began as a 
 work of charity. Gradually it grew into something more than a 
 secondary school. But during the years of its early growth, it never 
 hesitated to call for aid upon the Legislature of New Hampshire ; 
 and its call was seldom heard in vain. It educated many of the sons 
 of Vermont, and in due time it called upon the Green Mountain 
 State for its share of assistance. A cheerful recognition of the ob¬ 
 ligation was the result. The land of a township was given to the 
 college, and a record of the fact was stamped into the history and 
 upon the map of the state by giving to the town the name of the 
 college president. 
 
 What was true of the method that prevailed in New England was 
 also true of the South. William and Mary, the second college estab¬ 
 lished in the Colonies, took its name from the royal benefactors who 
 made the first large contribution for its support out of the public 
 treasury. The Colony was also taxed in behalf of the institution. 
 A part of the value of every pound of tobacco raised in Virginia had 
 to go into the treasury for the benefit of the college. This contin¬ 
 ued throughout colonial days. Vnd when Jefferson conceived the 
 plan of the University of Virginia, in some respects the grandest ed- 
 
6 
 
 ucational project ever devised in America, though he was inclined to 
 intrust less authority to the government than any other of our fore¬ 
 fathers, he endeavored to make the institution as much a part of the 
 educational system of the state as were the common schools them¬ 
 selves. 
 
 This method of supporting the colleges, moreover, was not only 
 universal, it was also effectual in that it planted and nourished into 
 maturity colleges of a high order of merit even in the infant days of 
 our national life. Not only were admirable scholars made, but they 
 were made in large numbers. The standards of those days, it is 
 true, were somewhat different from the standards of our days ; but 
 one who looks at what was done, while recognizing great differences, 
 will hesitate long before he pronounces them inferior. A recent and 
 eminent superintendent of education in your own state not long 
 since pronounced the opinion that the standards of higher education 
 in colonial days were not simply relatively, but actually higher than 
 the standards of the second half of the nineteenth century. I am 
 not here to corroborate this statement or even to express an opinion 
 on that point. But we may regard it as certain that the schools that 
 could train the men of revolutionary days were efficient and were 
 among the most valuable institutions of colonial time. 
 
 And when we pass on from colonial days to the days of the re¬ 
 public, we find that the propriety and the justice of these methods 
 were universally recognized. That first great ordinance which still 
 sheds its benign influence over the Northwest, provided that 
 ‘‘Schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.” 
 And from the day of that benignant provision to the present time, 
 no territory has been organized and no state has been admitted to the 
 Union without provision that a part of its domain shall be set apart 
 for higher learning as well as a part for the common schools. 
 
 Thus it is that I hold the Land Grant of 1862 to have been in 
 strict accordance with the best traditions of our educational history. 
 
 The second part of my thesis is that the Morrill Land Grant was 
 in strict accordance with the spirit of the present time. 
 
 We, doubtless, sometimes talk flippantly and unwisely of what we 
 call the spirit of the age. And yet the age in which we live has cer¬ 
 tain peculiarities which we can hardly go astray in trying to char¬ 
 acterize. They are so distinctly marked, indeed they are so generally 
 acknowledged and understood that even to speak of them, subjects 
 one to the charge of dealing with the common-place. But the relation 
 
7 
 
 
 of these characteristics to matters of education is so important that 
 I shall venture briefly to speak of them. 
 
 During the middle ages the work of the schools was limited to 
 the education of those who were to go into the learned professions. 
 It is even a matter of some doubt whether the great Charles, the 
 organizer of schools in France and Germany could himself write or 
 read. It is certain that one of the greatest of French military lead¬ 
 ers, as late as the time when the Renaissance was beginning to dawn, 
 was absolutely illiterate. 
 
 Nor was this condition of affairs a singular one, or one that should 
 excite our surprise. Before the introduction of the Baconian philos¬ 
 ophy, the methods of looking at the problems of life were the reverse 
 of the methods that have now come to prevail. Aristotle said, 44 Look 
 into your own minds, study the nature of thought, look into the nature 
 of things, and thus you will be able to reason out the course of con¬ 
 duct you ought to pursue.” The Aristotelian philosophy prevailed 
 until the seventeenth century. At length came Bacon and Descartes. 
 Their methods were the opposite. They said, study things not so 
 much in their nature,—which you cannot know anything about by a 
 process of reasoning—as in their characteristics and relations. Yon 
 are to reason from their external appearance and characteristics which 
 everybody can investigate and in some sense at least understand into 
 their internal natures. Thus it was that the Baconian or inductive 
 philosophy had for its aim the setting of all thinking beings to the 
 examining of the things everywhere about them. It taught not only 
 that the domain of thought, but also that the domain of action, was 
 open to the scrutiny of human intelligence. It exhorted everybody 
 to pry into whatever there was within the range of observation. 
 Examine the methods of nature, in order to discover the laws of 
 nature. Examine the habits of animals in order to become acquainted 
 with the laws of their development. Study the rocks, the trees, the 
 plants, the flowers, in fact, study all the domain of nature, in order 
 to discover the secrets of nature. The exhortation was followed in 
 the course of the last century by the birth of what are called the Nat¬ 
 ural Sciences. 
 
 It is not singular that this method immediately began to insist on 
 the examination of institutions as well as the things of nature. Here¬ 
 tofore, the rights of the church, the rights of the king, the rights of 
 all governing powers, rested, not on any evidence that such forms 
 and methods by actual experience had been shown to conduce to the 
 
8 
 
 largest happiness of man, but rather on some preconceived right that 
 was founded on authority either human or divine. But now came a 
 change. The Baconian philosophy taught that men might examine 
 the conduct of government; and they drew the logical inference that 
 if they might examine, they might act on the results of examination. 
 This they did not hesitate to do. It is an interesting fact that the 
 immortal work of Bacon which embodied and put into permanent 
 scientific form the results of his studies and the substance of his phi¬ 
 losophy was published in 1620, the very year of the Pilgrims at Ply¬ 
 mouth, just twenty-two years before the vigorous outbreak of the 
 English Revolution. 
 
 Now what was the educational significance of this movement? 
 Why, simply this. It opened the whole realm of nature as the legit¬ 
 imate field of investigation and study. Before this time the work of 
 the schools and universities had been confined to developing the minds 
 of the pupil and the teaching of the four learned professions—theol¬ 
 ogy, medicine, law, and pedagogy. Universities had been established 
 
 A 
 
 in the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries in- all 
 parts of Europe, but in no one of them were studies carried on in 
 accordance with the modern investigating spirit. This is not strange, 
 for the sciences had not yet been born. They could not come into ■ 
 existence till the investigating or inductive methods of study had 
 come to prevail, and these methods it was that the Baconian philoso¬ 
 phy ushered in. 
 
 A change of this nature was necessarily slow in making itself 
 observed. But there was here and there a man who caught the new 
 spirit and preached the new doctrine. The most enlightened man of 
 the next generation was Milton. He had in the vast stores of his 
 mind all the wealth of ancient learning. But he saw the full signifi¬ 
 cance of the new philosophy and so every page of his tractate on 
 Education is redolent with the modern spirit. Here are some of his 
 words, “I call therefore a complete and generous education, that 
 which fits a man to perform justly, skillfully, and magnanimously all 
 the offices, both private and public of peace and war.” This com¬ 
 prehensive definition might not inaptly be emblazoned as a motto 
 upon the walls of every one of the institutions founded by the Mor¬ 
 rill Grant of 1862. 
 
 But the doctrine of Milton was slow in permeating educated soci¬ 
 ety. Institutions of learning are proverbially conservative. The 
 universities resisted all change until the necessity of change made 
 
9 
 
 itself everywhere apparent. A century passed on during which the 
 ideas of Bacon and Milton were gradually infiltratrating themselves 
 into the minds of the people. Then came the great book of Adam 
 Smith on the Wealth of Nations,—a book which is entitled to this 
 distinction that by combining the Aristotelian with the Baconian 
 methods it sought to establish a science of wealth on a philosophical 
 basis. The premises and the reasoning on which conclusions were 
 founded were not in my judgment without great errors ; but the book 
 had its bearings on education scarcely less important than its bearings 
 on political economy and finance. Its teachings were essentially this : 
 the best thing government can do with men, as a rule , is simply to 
 protect them against abuses from their fellows, and then let them 
 alone. This doctrine, however faulty,—and civilization is now teach¬ 
 ing that it is full of faults,—carried with it this logical conclusion. 
 If it be true, that men will most successfully work out their own for- 
 tune and destiny, when not interfered with by government, it follows 
 that they must acquire the general intelligence suitable for self guid¬ 
 ance, and, consequently, that far more generous provisions for edu¬ 
 cation must be made than had ever before been provided for. 
 
 These doctrines of Adam Smith, moreover, were in complete har¬ 
 mony with what are commonly called the revolutionary doctrines of 
 the latter part of the last century. Jefferson, as well as Adam Smith, 
 preached the doctrine of letting men and things alone. And it was 
 precisely because kings and parliaments and nobles and hereditary 
 lords would not let men and things alone, that the revolution came 
 on in America, and, a little later, in France. 
 
 There is another phase of the course of events that is worthy of 
 note. While the revolutionary ideas in regard to the proper attitude 
 of government toward the people were taking root there was another 
 revolution going on which had even greater significance. The Bacon¬ 
 ian doctrine of investigation was beginning to bear fruit. As a-con¬ 
 sequence the modern sciences had come into being. In all parts of 
 the world every bright boy wns looking into things. Every intelligent 
 man was thinking of the ways by which his means of subsistence 
 could be improved. You know the result was the most remarkable 
 succession of inventions that history has ever known anything about. 
 The power loom, the spinning jenny, the application of steam to the 
 driving of machinery, the cotton gin, the invention of the locomotive 
 engine, the building of roads and canals, not only changed the meth¬ 
 ods of existence from top to bottom, but also made everybody the 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 near neighbor of everybody else. Contemplate one or two simple 
 facts. At the middle of the last century it was still the regular 
 method of conveying freight in England between London and the 
 interior to put it into crooks thrown across the backs of mules, and 
 send it along the narrow pathways that crossed the country. But 
 what a miracle was soon wrought. When Emerson visited England 
 about the middle of the present century he recorded in his “ Notes” 
 that the working power of steam in Great Britain alone, was equal 
 to the strength of six hundred millions of men : and that thirty-six 
 thousand ships were employed in carrying British products to distant 
 parts of the world. What a mighty revolution was that? 
 
 It is interesting to note that these two revolutions, the political 
 and philosophical on the one hand, and the social and economic on 
 the other, were strictly contemporaneous. As we said that the date 
 of the Novum Organum was the date of the Pilgrims ; so we may 
 note that the date of the “Wealth of Nations” and of the patents 
 of Watt and Bolton were all within the years of our revolutionary 
 war. 
 
 Now it is a curious fact, that although it was in England that 
 these two revolutions had their origin, it was also in England that 
 the educational results of these revolutions were slowest and latest 
 in making themselves felt. The reason, however, is not far to seek. 
 England was the first to take advantage of the new inventions. 
 Factories had sprung into existence on every hill side and on every 
 stream, and British goods had taken possession of every market in 
 the world. The statesmen in France and Germany saw that nothing 
 but a systematic establishment of technical schools would regain for 
 the nations of the continent the industrial importance which they 
 had lost. And so industrial and technical schools were rapidly es¬ 
 tablished. The Ecole Polytechnique came into existence in 1795. 
 A school of similar purpose was established at Chalons in 1802 ; an¬ 
 other at Angers in 1811, and another at Aix in 1843. The still more 
 famous Ecole Centrale at Paris came into existence in 1829 with its 
 array of schools for the education of mechanical engineers, civil en¬ 
 gineers, chemists and architects. Besides these there were estab¬ 
 lished a vast number of trade schools of every kind, with shops for 
 the teaching of methods of working in wood and iron and brass and 
 other metals. In Paris alone there are more than a hundred such 
 schools open alike to natives and to foreigners. 
 
 In Germany the activity in this direction has been even more 
 
11 
 
 marked. Austria has seven great technical schools and Prussia has 
 nine. The new home of the Polytechnic at Berlin, perhaps the fin¬ 
 est educational building in the world, has, it is said, accommodations 
 for no less than four thousand students. 
 
 Moreover, besides these great centres of the higher grades of tech¬ 
 nical education, there is a vast number of schools of a more elemen¬ 
 tary grade. These are grouped about every industrial nucleus in the 
 country. In Hamburg alone nearly a hundred teachers are employed 
 to give instruction in technical and industrial subjects to the thou¬ 
 sands of pupils that throng the rooms. At the little mountain city 
 of Chemnitz in Saxony there are five higher technical and trade 
 schools, and so successful have these schools been within the past 
 few years in producing skilled labor, that from the single county of 
 Nottingham, in England, it is said that more than half a score of 
 great manufacturing firms have transferred their machinery to Sax¬ 
 ony in order to avail themselves of the superior workmanship that is 
 there offered. And it is in this way that Germany, by means of 
 her technical schools, is taking from England her industrial suprem¬ 
 acy. * 
 
 At last England has come to see her danger. At Manchester, at 
 Sheffield, at Birmingham, and in London technical schools of some 
 merit have recently been established. At last the scholastic tran¬ 
 quility of Cambridge even has been disturbed by the noise of the 
 saws and the lathes and the planing machines of a technical school; 
 and even old Eton, that has rested for centimes in its quiet beauty 
 under the shadows of Windsor Castle, and for centuries has been 
 the favorite school of the scions of nobility, has been obliged to yield 
 to the universal demand. By establishing a technical annex she, how¬ 
 ever unwillingly, has paid tribute to the inevitable. 
 
 But this is only one phase of the general movement. The other, 
 that which pertains to agriculture, is equally striking and equally im¬ 
 portant. 
 
 Agricultural schools were established in Germany early in the pres¬ 
 ent century. But it was not till after Liebig in 1844 published his 
 famous work on “Chemistry as applied to Agriculture” that any real 
 impulse was given to agricultural schools. But Liebig proved be¬ 
 yond the possibility of doubt two things. The one was that however 
 great the draft upon the soil, the fertility may be fully maintained 
 and even increased by restoring to the soil the mineral and the organ¬ 
 ic matter taken from it at the harvest. The second truth, and one 
 
 * v 
 
12 
 
 even more important than the other, was that the proportions and 
 quantities of the ingredients taken up by the crop are so variable and 
 so different under differing circumstances that nothing less than a 
 careful and scientific study of soils will enable one to restore those 
 ingredients in the most efficient and economical proportions. It was 
 accordingly held that for the encouragement of such studies, schools 
 of agriculture must be multiplied. 
 
 And from that day to this the number as well as the efficiency of 
 the schools has steadily increased. Prussia alone has four higher 
 agricultural colleges with some eighty professorships ; she has more 
 than forty lesser schools, all having model farms ; she has five spe¬ 
 cial schools for the cultivation of meadows and the scientific study of 
 methods of irrigation ; she has one special school for the teaching of 
 those who desire to reclaim swamp lands ; she has two special schools 
 for teaching thegrowingof fruit trees in industrial nurseries ; she has 
 a school for teaching horse-shoeing ; one for teaching silk raising ; one 
 
 for the raising of bees ; and one for teaching the cultivating of fish. 
 Besides all these she has twenty special schools for the education of 
 gardeners ; and fifteen schools for tlffi training of those who are to 
 cultivate the grape. 
 
 The example of Prussia has been imitated by the other German 
 states. The little Kingdom of Bavaria, scarcely larger than Massa¬ 
 chusetts, has twenty-six agricultural colleges, besides more than two 
 hundred agricultural associations. Wurtemberg, still smaller in 
 area, has sixteen colleges, and seventy-six associations. Baden, 
 with a population of only a million, has fourteen agricultural col¬ 
 leges besides four schools of gardening and forestry. Saxony, with 
 its dense population of two millions compacted into a space hardly 
 larger than two American counties, has four higher colleges and 
 twenty agricultural schools besides a veterinary college, and a de¬ 
 partment of agriculture of twenty professors at the University of 
 Leipsic. Saxe Weimar, with a population of no more than 230,000 
 souls has three agricultural colleges besides an agricultural depart¬ 
 ment with fifteen professorships at the University of Jena. 
 
 And what has been the result? Simply this, that while in every 
 one of the American states, as is shown by the agricultural reports, 
 the average crop per acre has been steadily growing less and less,* 
 
 ^Authority for this statement may be found in the Report of the Commission of Agri¬ 
 culture for the year 1886, p. 19. It is there shown that the average yield of the leading 
 cereals, between 1870 and 1879 was considerably greater than that from 1879 to 1885. The 
 diminution is shown by the following figures : The average corn crop declined from 20.8 
 to 25.1 bushels per acre; Wheat, from 12.5 to 12.1; Oats, from 27.5 to 27.2; Rye, from 14.2 to 
 12.8; Barley, from 22.4 to 22.08; and' Buckwheat, from 17.5 to 13.6. 
 
13 
 
 the average crop in Germany has been as steadily growing more and 
 more. In view of these facts, we ought to bow our heads in humili¬ 
 ty if not in shame. At least let ns cease our unwarranted boasting 
 about the superiority of our educational facilities. 
 
 Such have been the tendencies in other parts of the world, and I 
 trust that you will now agree with* me in thinking that the Morrill 
 Grant in purpose and in aim was in harmony with the general spirit 
 and the best tendencies of the times. 
 
 The third part of my thesis is the proposition that this land grant 
 was fraught with the means of incalculable advantage to the nation. 
 
 I am willing to concede that in many cases the avails of the grant 
 were not so large as they should have been. If it were necessary, I 
 would admit that in some instances there was a conflict between 
 private and public interests and that in consequence there was a cul¬ 
 pable misuse of the funds; I say “if it were necessary,” for 1 am 
 not aware that any such instances are clearly established. 
 
 But if there were even general misuse of the funds, would the fact 
 prove that the grant was unwise? Because there is misuse and 
 extravagance in the building of Post Offices and Custom Houses, do 
 we say that the building of such structures should cease ? Do we 
 argue that because there are fraudulent contracts for carrying the 
 mails, therefore contracts for the further carrying of the mails should 
 cease? Do we say that because there are frauds in elections there¬ 
 fore no elections shall be held? No! a thousand times no! We 
 contemplate the good we. receive, we determine to prevent the recur¬ 
 rence of abuses in the future, and then we demand those appropria¬ 
 tions which the greatest good of the people requires. And so must 
 it be in judging of this great measure. 
 
 And now having said so much, I wish to allude to one fact that 
 prevented the large returns from the grant that were anticipated. A 
 majority of the states had no government lands within their borders 
 subject to location under the bill. The consequence was that most 
 of the states were obliged to sell the government scrip at whatever 
 price it would bring. The market was flooded with scrip, and the 
 states found themselves confronted with this dilemma. Either they 
 must sell the scrip at the contemptible price of thirty or fifty cents 
 per acre, or they must postpone the establishment and development 
 of the college. It is not easy perhaps to decide which in this alter¬ 
 native was the wiser course to pursue ; certain it is that when the 
 states sold the scrip at a low price they practically gave back to the 
 
14 
 
 people in the way of profit on the lands a large share of what Con¬ 
 gress had in the first instance intended for the colleges. It follows 
 that whatever the states lost in selling upon a low market, the peo¬ 
 ple gained in buying, and are in equity through Congress under obli¬ 
 gations to restore. Fortunate were those states which, although 
 obliged to sell the scrip, found buyers who were willing to locate the 
 lands and give proper guaranty to turn over the profits to the college 
 established. 
 
 But notwithstanding the difficulties in the way of realizing the full 
 value of the Grant, no one, I imagine will have the hardihood to deny 
 that a great, an immense good has been accomplished. Look at a 
 few of the facts and figures. The Land Grant amounted to 17,430,- 
 000 acres. The sum realized from the sale of this scrip is reported 
 to have been $7,545,405. This sum has been greatly increased by 
 additions of grounds, buildings, apparatus, and money given by 
 benevolent individuals. In this way the land scrip fund, which in 
 New York amounted to scarcely more than $600,000, has been aug¬ 
 mented to not less than about $6,000,000. Though the university to 
 which I refer has, perhaps, been the most fortunate of the land grant 
 institutions, gifts with a similar purpose have likewise increased the 
 endowments in other States. The result is that the latest reports 
 show that these colleges now employ nearly five hundred professors 
 and teachers, and give instruction to some five thousand students. 
 Many of these students have, in turn, become teachers in other schools 
 and colleges. From the institution with which I have the honor to 
 be connected, I recall the names of at least twelve of the graduates 
 who have become professors of some branch of Agriculture in other 
 schools of collegiate grade. In a similar way, the other land grant 
 colleges are disseminating knowledge on those great subjects which 
 were especially named in the bill. 
 
 But this, of course, has been but a small part of the work. Thous¬ 
 ands of young men, educated in the various branches of Agriculture 
 and Mechanical Science, have gone forth to engage in the practical 
 duties of life, and thus have disseminated and multiplied the knowl¬ 
 edge they have received. The work is to go on with ever accelerat¬ 
 ing vigor, and thus there will be sent out a continued succession for 
 all future time. 
 
 There is another feature of the benefits received from this great 
 measure that ought not to be overlooked. I refer to the fact that 
 centres of agricultural knowledge have been established in all the 
 
15 
 
 States of the Union. The science of agriculture, before almost ab¬ 
 solutely unknown by the masses of the people has come to be in 
 some measure at last respected and even honored. The agricultural 
 necessities of the country have been made more apparent. To some 
 thousands of young men the stupendous fact is now taught that na¬ 
 ture will not be cheated of her rights, and that for everything you 
 take out of the soil, you must put something back, or the time will 
 come when nature’s cashier will cease to honor your drafts, and you 
 will end in bankruptcy. 
 
 And what a field for such teaching there is ; look at the statistics 
 of our Agricultural Department. In every one of the States, in the 
 North, in the South, in the East and even in the West, the yield per 
 acre of all the great cereal crops has been steadily declining since 
 the early years of the Century. The American farmer has impover¬ 
 ished the soil,—and then gone West. It is not certain that this pro¬ 
 cess has even yet been arrested. The last statistics available for 
 general comparison are not very reassuring. If the New England 
 States have held their own, it has not been by means of improved ag¬ 
 riculture, but by the general establishment of manufactories. The 
 same process has been going on that converted many of the fertile 
 lands of Virginia into pine barrens. As we all know too well thou¬ 
 sands of acres in the Eastern States have been abandoned as practic¬ 
 ally worthless. Meanwhile the streams of immigration and emigra¬ 
 tion have been going on. The Irish and the Germans have come to 
 Massachusetts ; but the farmers of Massachusetts have gone to New 
 York and Ohio, the people of New York and Ohio have gone to In¬ 
 diana and Illinois, and'the people of Indiana and Illinois have gone 
 to Kansas and the farther West. Ever westward has been the move¬ 
 ment until the current has been arrested on the slopes of the Pacific. 
 At length there is no West, to whose virgin soil we may flee. Our 
 farmers no longer have the choice between remaining poor or moving 
 toward the setting sun ; they have the other alternative, the one 
 which has long confronted the farmers of the old world, remaining 
 poor or a more perfect knowledge of the conditions under which na¬ 
 ture will yield a bounteous and profitable return. 
 
 Then look at another fact. In many regions of our country the 
 same desolating process is going on that has reduced the fertile fields 
 about the Mediterranean to sterile deserts. The trees are being- 
 swept away and thus we attempt to frustrate the methods by which 
 an all wise Providence designed that the moisture in the deep soil 
 
 t 
 
16 
 
 should be taken up into the plant and cast off into the clouds to be 
 returned again as rain. What has been the result? The rainfall has 
 
 t • 
 
 been diminished, the showers which heaven still does not refuse to 
 furnish, instead of being- welcomed by the soft verdure of forests 
 and cultivated fields and lovingly kept in the soil for the good of all 
 animal and plant life, is repelled by parched hill sides, so that it 
 shoots off in angry torrents and is soon once more in the lakes and the 
 great rivers and the oceans beyond. Thus by a perfectly explicable 
 method our climate is undergoing a change and it is the change which 
 in some of the regions of the old world has caused the sands to drift 
 over regions that were once the homes of a prosperous people. 
 
 And yet however great the difficulties may seem, there is no ten¬ 
 dency of nature that is more amenable to the influence of man’s ap¬ 
 preciative intelligence. Everybody remembers Emerson’s allusion to 
 the ability of the English b}^ the planting of trees on the borders of 
 Egypt to bring rain again after a drought of three thousand years. 
 We have beeu doing the same thing in the West; for the planting of 
 trees and cornfields in Kansas and Nebraska up to the very frontier 
 has already pushed the rain-line further west by more than a hundred 
 miles. The Reports of the Commissioner of Agriculture are teem¬ 
 ing with facts of similar significance. It is estimated, for example, 
 that the loss from the swine plague alone reaches annually some thir¬ 
 ty millions of dollars, and that the value of corn and wheat annually 
 destroyed by fungi is not less than the enormous sum of two hundred 
 millions.* 
 
 These are some of the lessons and some of the necessities that are 
 taught by experience; and yet they.are only hints, as it were, de¬ 
 signed to show how vast is the domain that invites the careful study 
 of our schools and colleges. It is into this domain that the people 
 were invited by the wise Land Grant of 1862. It is in this domain 
 that the colleges and universities founded on that grant, if they live 
 up to their high behest, will accomplish results that shall be for the 
 helping, if not for the healing of the nation. 
 
 * Report of Commissioner of Agriculture for 1SS6, pp. 11, 24. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
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