with amendments. This bill differed from former bills principally in adding proceeds from patents, reducing interest to 4 per cent, and permitting the Secretary of the Treasury to accept gifts for educational purposes. On March 8, 1880, Senator Morgan, of Alabama, offered an amendment requiring admission of women to landgrant colleges.

On December 14, 1880, this bill was discussed in the Senate by Messrs. Burnside, Morrill, Brown, Teller, Hoar, Blair, Bailey, and Ingalls. Amendments including admission of women and training of teachers were adopted. The word "national" as a designation of land-grant colleges was stricken from the title of the bill. It passed the Senate December 17, 1880, by a vote of 41 to 9. The House refused to consider this bill.

Senator Morrill, however, persisted in his efforts to secure the passage of an educational bill. On January 23, 1884, he reintroduced the bill which had passed the Senate in 1880, except that one-half the annual returns from railroads was substituted for the receipts from patents. This bill was reported back March 12, 1884, considered momentarily three times in the Senate, and put to sleep on the calendar January 5, 1885. The same bill was reintroduced by Senator Morrill February 17, 1886, and May 1, 1888, but in both cases was laid on the table.

The friends of Federal aid for common schools were not satisfied with the proposals for that purpose in Senator Morrill's bills. Under the leadership of Senators Blair and Hoar several large bills for this purpose were considered in the Senate. These bills attracted much attention in and out of Congress and had the active support of many people. In the end public sentiment crystallized against the use of Federal funds for common schools.

Mr. Morrill's attempts to utilize the sentiment in favor of Federal aid to common schools to float appropriations for the land-grant colleges proved a mistaken policy, but he persisted in this course until 1890.

THE MORRILL LAND-GRANT COLLEGE BILLS OF 1890

On March 25, 1890, Senator Morrill introduced a bill (S. 3256), which had the same title as previous bills but in which the allotment to the land-grant colleges of one-half of the educational fund accruing from the proceeds of public lands and railroads was made more prominent by being placed ahead of the common-school grant (546). The college fund was to be permanent with interest at 4 per cent, which was to be given in equal shares to each State and Territory up to a maximum of $25,000 annually, the remainder going to the common schools. This was the first indication that Senator Morrill did not consider the connection of the land-grant college grant with that to common schools so important as he had hitherto. He now had the active assistance of the executive committee of the agricultural college association and "with the hearty concurrence of Senator Blair" the college bill was rewritten and again introduced April 30, 1890. It was now a bill "to apply a portion of the proceeds of the public lands to the more complete endowment and support" of the land-grant colleges. It carried an appropriation of

12931-29- -14

$15,000 to each State and Territory and an annual increase of this sum by $1,000 for 10 years, after which the annual appropriation would be $25,000. No distinction of race or color was to be made in the admission of students, but where separate colleges for white and colored students were maintained this would be considered a compliance with the act provided the fund was equitably divided between the two races. Reports of finances and work were to be made annually to the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior. None of the Federal fund was to be spent for the purchase, erection, preservation, or repair of buildings. The Secretary of the Interior was charged with the administration of the act.

This bill was referred to the Committee on Education and Labor, of which Senator Blair was chairman, and was favorably reported by him, with amendments, May 17, 1890. "After being discussed at length for three days and considerably amended the bill passed the Senate June 23 by a practically unanimous vote."

The next day it was read in the House of Representatives and referred to the Committee on Education, by whom it was favorably reported, without amendment, on July 12. Under a special order it was considered August 19 and passed in the House, with one amendment, by a vote of 135 to 39. The Senate concurred in the amended bill on August 20. The amendment adopted in the House restricted the use of the Federal funds to the teaching of "agriculture, the mechanic arts, the English language, and the various branches of mathematical, physical, natural and economic science, with special reference to their applications in the industries of life and to the facilities for such instruction." It was prepared by the executive committee of the association to meet the views of the National Grange on this matter.

The act was approved by President Harrison, August 30, 1890. Opposition to the use of any available money in the United States Treasury for the benefit of the land-grant institutions gradually died out, and in an act of May 17, 1900, providing for free homesteads on the public lands, it was expressly declared that if the proceeds of the sales of public lands shall not be sufficient to meet the payments "provided for agricultural colleges and experimental stations" by the act of August 30, 1890, "such deficiency shall be paid by the United States."

THE EARLY AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATIONS AND MEETINGS OF AGRICULTURAL TEACHERS

Meanwhile the agricultural forces interested in teaching and research were strengthening their position and making a beginning of united action. Following the convention at Washington in 1872 there was increased activity in agricultural experimentation in the United States Department of Agriculture and the land-grant colleges. Beginning with 1875 agricultural experiment stations were organized, first at Middletown, Conn. (transferred to New Haven in 1877), and during the next 10 years in Alabama, California, Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York (Geneva and Ithaca), North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. Of these 18 stations, 7 were

organized separately under State laws, but all except those in Louisiana, New York (Geneva), and North Carolina were established at or near the land-grant colleges.

In 1880 under the leadership of W. J. Beal, of the Michigan Agricultural College, the Society for the Advancement of Agricultural Science was organized. The same year on the invitation of G. E. Morrow, of the University of Illinois, agricultural teachers in a number of the land-grant colleges assembled at Champaign, Ill., and formed an association entitled "The Teachers of Agriculture.' This organization held meetings at agricultural colleges in Michigan (1881), Iowa (1882), Ohio (1883), New York (Cornell, 1884), and Indiana (Purdue University, 1885). Its proceedings were informal and were not published. At the meeting in 1881 there were present Professors Morrow, of Illinois, Knapp and Budd, of Iowa, Shelton, of Kansas, Porter, of Minnesota, Tracy, of Missouri, Thompson, of Nebraska, Georgeson, of Texas, and Henry, of Wisconsin.

THE WASHINGTON CONVENTIONS OF 1882 AND 1883

On July 1, 1881, George Bailey Loring, long-time president of the New England Agricultural Society and a lecturer at the Massachusetts Agricultural College, became United States Commissioner of Agriculture. He had presided at the Washington agricultural convention of 1872 and had been a Member of the Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth Congresses, when Senator Morrill's bills for Federal aid to the land-grant colleges were pending there. Within a month after he entered the Department of Agriculture he issued a call for a series of four 2-day agricultural conventions to meet at the Department of Agriculture at Washington January 10-18, 1882 (418). These conventions were to consider matters relating to (1) agricultural education and organizations and the principles of farming, (2) animal industries, (3) cereal crops, and (4) the management of vineyards and the manufacture of wines. Delegates from the State agricultural colleges and societies were invited, and 19 States were represented at the first roll call. Among those present who were prominent in the affairs of the agricultural colleges and experiment stations, were Atwater and Gold, of Connecticut; Peabody and Morrow, of Illinois; Fairchild, of Kansas; Fernald, of Maine; Porter, of Minnesota; Cook, of New Jersey; Caldwell and Roberts, of New York. Commissioner Loring was made chairman and H. E. Alvord (then from the private experiment station at Houghton Farm, N. Y.) was one of the secretaries.

Professor Cook read a paper on agricultural education in New Jersey, in which he dwelt especially on the work of the experiment stations. Professor Caldwell spoke on the experiment station as the educator of the farmer, and Professor Atwater described cooperative experiments with fertilizers carried on for five years in nine States. A committee on cooperative experiments was then appointed which recommended that the Department of Agriculture prepare a digest of foreign experiments, endeavor to bring about cooperative experiments in this country on a carefully prepared

plan, and ask Congress to appropriate money for this work. Regent Peabody, of the University of Illinois, discussed the legitimate work of the land-grant institutions, holding that their primary business was to teach, but that their curricula should include many subjects besides agriculture and mechanic arts.

A second series of three conventions on agricultural education, animal industry, and cotton was held at Washington January 22-29, 1883 (419), at which 29 States and Utah Territory were represented. Among those present at the meeting on agricultural education were Messrs. Brewer, of Connecticut; Knapp and James Wilson, of Iowa; Abbot, of Michigan; Folwell, of Minnesota; Law, of New York; and Atherton, of Pennsylvania. Senator Morrill was a delegate representing the Vermont State Agricultural Society. At this meeting there was much discussion of the difficulties which the landgrant colleges were having, including the problems of student labor. H. W. Wiley, then representing Purdue University in Indiana, read an extract from an address by E. E. White, president of that institution, in which he summed up the existing status of the landgrant colleges.

it may be safely said that the results actually accomplished by the national grant in the two decades now closing are not satisfactory, though promising more complete success in the future. The best results thus far attained have been in the direction of scientific training and investigation. The founding of the national schools has caused the study of science to assume new importance in all higher institutions, and a greatly increased number of students are taking the so-called scientific courses of study. Radical changes have also been made in the methods of teaching science, and enlarged facilities for scientific study and investigation have been provided.

The most unsatisfactory results are in technical training, both in agriculture and the mechanic arts. The contributions made to agricultural science have been small, and the promising work of agricultural experiment is still in its infancy, even in the institutions first organized, and in most of them it has not been seriously undertaken. Comparatively few students have taken distinctively technical or industrial courses, and the small number of welltrained technologists sent into the industries of the country is at once a surprise and a disappointment. The great majority of the students receiving either an agricultural or mechanical training are found in the few institutions which have only industrial courses of study.

It is not difficult to account for this unsatisfactory progress in industrial training and investigation. The importance of technical education for the farmer and artisan is not generally realized, and, as a consequence, the demand for such training is limited, though happily increasing.

Professor Wiley also read a paper on "The true relation of the sciences to the industries and arts," which led to considerable discussion regarding experimental work in agriculture. In the course of this discussion, Thomas H. Dudley, representing the New Jersey State Agricultural Society, made the following statements:

I shall be very glad to see the time when every State in this Union shall have established an agricultural experiment station in connection with a farm for carrying on practical field experiments.

It is a practical subject which the Government should take up; and not only the General Government, but I would be glad to see a large appropriation sufficient to establish an experiment farm and an agricultural experiment station upon it in every State, so that both might be carried on for the people of the whole State.

As the final outcome of the interest in agricultural experimentation aroused in this meeting a resolution indorsing the bill of Congressman Carpenter of Iowa for the establishment of agricultural ex

periment stations in connection with the State agricultural colleges introduced by Seaman A. Knapp (fig. 10), at the request of President Abbot of the Michigan Agricultural College, was adopted.

A committee of five was appointed to prepare a statement on this subject for presentation to the Committee of Agriculture of the House of Representatives. Messrs. Knapp and Abbot, together with

Stephen D. Lee, of the Mississippi Agricultural College; Paul Chadbourne, of the Massachusetts Agricultural College; and E. E. White, of Purdue University, were appointed on this committee.

THE CARPENTER AND HOLMES EXPERIMENT STATION BILLS

Prior to the convention in 1883 Professor Knapp had drafted a bill. for Federal aid to agricultural experiment stations. Charles E. Bessey, then a professor in the Iowa Agricultural College, wrote the