in the Colonies, the William and Mary of Virginia, was founded and supported through colonial days from the public treasury.

In our own State the fear that in some way educational institutions might interfere with that perfect individual religious freedom of thought and action which was the central motive that brought Roger Williams to settle Providence Plantations, seems to have caused division of opinion among the early settlers and time passed on till 1762, when James Manning was instrumental in an effort to procure a charter for the establishment of a University in Rhode Island, upon a broad basis of religious freedom.

This effort was doomed to defeat through religious jealousy; but two years later, in February, 1764, a charter was granted, but we find no record of educational work until 1766, when eight students were instructed in the town of Warren, and the first commencement dates from September 7, 1769. A proposition to build in Warren led to an agreement to locate in the county which might raise the most money in support of it, and February 7, 1770, it was voted to build the college edifice" in the town of Providence, and there to be continued forever."

GRADUATES, PROFESSIONAL MEN.

The minister, the lawyer, the doctor, the scholar and perhaps the merchant were graduates of these colleges. The sons of farmers, merchants and professional men entered their halls to go forth into the socalled professions. The idea that the son of the farmer intending to follow his father's vocation, the youth whose ambition was to become a builder, a blacksmith, a wheelwright or cabinet maker, required any other training than a smattering of the "three R.'s" and a thorough seven years' apprenticeship in the manual labor of the field or workshop had not been advanced by even the most liberal educationalists on this or the other side of the water.

WASHINGTON ADVOCATES AGRICULTURE.

It remained for the Father of his Country—and is it not an additional evidence of the far-seeing wisdom of this remarkable statesman and

farmer as well-to say in his annual message at the second session of the Fourth Congress, December 7, 1796, just a year after the organization of the first industrial and technical school in Europe, these words:

"It will not be doubted that with reference either to individual or national welfare, agriculture is of primary importance. In proportion as nations advance in population and other circumstances of maturity this truth becomes more apparent and renders the cultivation of the soil more and more an object of public patronage. Institutions for promoting it grow up supported by the public purse; and to what object can it be dedicated with greater propriety.

Among the means which have been employed to this end, none have been attended with greater success than the establishment of Boards composed of public characters charged with collecting and diffusing information, and enabled by premiums and small pecuniary aid to encourage and assist a spirit of discovery and improvement. This species of establishment contributes doubly to the increase of improvements by stimulating to enterprise and experiment and by drawing to a common centre the results everywhere of individual skill and observation and spreading them thence over the whole nation.

Experience accordingly has shown that they are very cheap instruments of immense national importance."

NATIONAL BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

The propositions for a National University and a National Board of Agriculture made about this time were referred to a committee, but never heard from after. A few agricultural societies had been already organized, the earliest in Philadelphia in 1785, the Massachusetts Society for promoting Agriculture, incorporated March 7, 1792, and one in New York and another in North Carolina with some others doubtless, before the present century began.

In 1817 a memorial was presented to Congress through the efforts of members of Berkshire, Mass., Agricultural Society in favor of a National Board of Agriculture. The favorable report of the committee to

which it was referred was ably seconded by some, but opposed by the large majority and defeated.

Finally a National Agricultural Department came into being in connection with the Patent Office about 1837. The Rhode Island Society for the Encouragement of Domestic Industry has been a stimulus to the industrial and agricultural business of the State since 1820. Local societies sprang up in all sections of the country.

INVENTION STIMULATES AGRICULTURE.

Many and varied influences were at work turning the attention of public men to the agriculture of the country. The possibilities of steam transportation by sea and land were just unfolding. Better postal facilities and more rapid transportation of mails gave an unbounded impetus to the publication of papers and literature of all kinds, stirred the minds and quickened the thoughts of the people.

The discovery of gold in California and the subsequent tide of emigration westward, the tireless spirit of invention which strove on every hand so successfully to substitute the machine for man and steam for muscle, reached the hitherto almost untouched field of agriculture. Improved plows, cultivators and harrows were made, mowing machines invented, horse rakes, tedders, reapers, self-binders, etc., etc., came in rapid succession with numberless improvements, till now the number and variety of farming tools is legion.

AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS OF EUROPE.

Meanwhile the elaborate report on the agricultural schools of Europe by Mr. Chas. L. Fleischmann in the Patent Office report for 1847, and of Dr. Hitchcock, commissioned by the State of Massachusetts in 1851 to examine the agricultural schools of England, France and Germany and report thereon, together with spasmodic efforts in some sections of our own country looking toward the establishment of some agricultural school or college, formed a leaven which was slowly but steadily doing its work on public opinion. Again, observing minds had been a little startled and troubled to find from the census reports of the

United States, that our lands all through the country were generally deteriorating, the successive census statistics showing a less and less number of bushels of cereals per acre in nearly all the States.

LAND GRANT ACT INTRODUCED IN CONGRESS.

These facts led the Hon. Justin S. Morrill, then a National Representative from Vermont, on the 14th of December, 1857, to introduce a bill which provided for the issue of land scrip to the several States and Territories at the rate of 20,000 acres for each Senator or Representative in Congress for the purpose of founding a college in each, where such branches should be taught as are most intimately related to agriculture and the mechanic arts.

The Committee on Public Lands reported against this bill about four months later, but Mr. Morrill ably and eloquently defended his cause and perseveringly worked for his bill. Fourteen months after it was offered it had successfully passed both branches of Congress and awaited the signature of President Buchanan to become a law. It was returned with the President's veto and the veto was sustained, although the objections were satisfactorily answered by Mr. Morrill.

PASSAGE OF LAND GRANT ACT.

In December, 1861, he again offered a bill providing for 30,000 acres of the public lands for each Senator and Representative, and it was referred to the Committee on Public Lands.

It was not until May 29, 1862, that Mr. Potter of Wisconsin reported against it, and it was referred to the committee of the whole. On the 2d of May, before the House Committee had reported unfavorably, Hon. Benjamin Wade of Ohio offered a bill essentially the same, which was referred to the Senate Committee on Public Lands, Senator Harlan of Iowa, Chairman. With admirable promptness on the 14th of May he reported the bill with trifling amendments, and on June 10th it passed the Senate without active opposition. The following day the bill went to the House, and although strongly opposed by the Committee on Public Lands, passed on June 19th, and became a law with the signature of Abraham Lincoln, July 2, 1862.

PROVISIONS OF THE ACT OF 1862.

This Act gave each State, "for the purpose hereinafter mentioned," 30,000 acres of public land for each Senator and Representative in Congress, not including any mineral lands.

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Section 2 provides the manner in which the lands should be set off and said scrip to be sold by said States and the proceeds thereof applied to the uses and purposes prescribed in this Act, and for no other purpose whatsoever."

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Section 3 provides that the State shall pay out of the Treasury all expense of locating, sale and management of funds, so that the entire proceeds of the sale of said lands shall be applied without any diminution whatsoever to the purposes hereinafter mentioned."

Section 4 provides for the investment of the funds derived from sale of the land scrip in stocks of the United States or of the State or some other safe stocks yielding not less than five (5) per centum upon the par value of said stocks, and that the moneys so invested shall constitute a perpetual fund, the capital of which shall remain forever undiminished (except so far as may be provided in section fifth of this Act) and the interest of which shall be inviolably appropriated by each State which may take and claim the benefit of this Act, to the endowment, support and maintenance of at least one college where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislature of the States may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life.

Section 5 names the conditions "to which, as well as the provisions herein before contained, the previous assent of the severa! States shall be signified by legislative acts."

CONDITIONS OF THE ACT OF 1862.

The first condition requires the State to replace any portion or interest thereon which by any action or contingency be diminished or lost,