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turned over to the University this land at what it had cost him and thus the University secured this valuable tract of land.

The purchase of such a tract of ground for an experimental farm well illustrates the attitude of the majority of the board of regents as it was constituted at that time. The members were exceedingly skeptical of the possibility of agricultural education and experimentation and did just as little as they felt they could do and meet the demands of those who had greater faith in the possibilities of making such an education practicable. This tract of land it was thought would "do" since a farm must be purchased. The chief item in favor of this tract being that it was near the rest of the University. This attitude of the board of regents should be kept in mind in considering later developments of

education along agricultural lines, for it was a potent factor in delaying the final solution of the problem.

When Professor C. Y. Lacy was placed in charge of the farm some years later, he found that it was not at all suited to farming while it had grown to be exceedingly valuable for other purposes and he proposed to the regents that they sell the farm and purchase another less high priced but better suited to the needs of experimental investigations. This action, though strongly urged, was delayed until Professor E. D. Porter came to the University in 1880 and he insisted that what Professor Lacy had recommended be done, that the old farm be sold and a new one purchased. This was finally done in 1883 and 1884 and netted sufficient to purchase a new farm and erect several buildings thereon.

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II. PRESIDENT FOLWELL'S ADMINISTRATION

THE BEGINNING OF PRESIDENT FOLWELL'S

ADMINISTRATION.

The second period of the history of the Uni versity, extending from 1869 to 1884, covers the administration of President Folwell and is notable chiefly for the struggle for existence and to lay, broad and deep, the foundations of a real university.

The board created by the act of February 18th, 1868, and given authority to complete the settlement of the debts of the territorial institution, succeeded in closing up the old ac

counts and on August 23rd, 1869, the board proceeded to the election of the first University faculty consisting of William Watts Folwell, president and professor of mathematics; Gabriel Campbell, professor of moral and intellectual philosophy and instructor in German; Edward H. Twining, professor of chemistry and instructor in French; Versal J. Walker, professor of Latin; Jabez Brooks, professor of Greek; A. B. Donaldson, professor of rhetoric and English literature; R. W. Johnson, professor of military science and tactics; D. A. Robertson, pro

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fessor of agriculture; Arthur Beardsley, tutor. Two of these had taught in the University preparatory school during the two previous years.

On the 15th day of September, 1869, the University was formally opened by the calling of the first college classes. There was no demonstration of any kind to mark the momentous event. The freshman class was organized mainly from the students who came in from the preparatory department. The faculty cheerfully undertook the instruction of the preparatory classes, and the visitor might have seen the unique spectacle of a major general of the United States army teaching arithmetic, an excollege president drilling students in Greek etymology, and the president of the college doing his best to give instruction in elocution, geometry and rhetoric. For many years the steady grind of hard work was kept up; the faculty did their work on most meagre salaries, and with totally inadequate equipment, but with a zeal that was prophetic of the great future before the institution.

HIS IDEAS OF A UNIVERSITY.

In his inaugural address delivered December 22nd, 1869, in the large room on the third story of the west wing of "old main," Dr. Folwell outlined his ideas of what a University should be. In the light of the forty years that have elapsed since this address was given, one can not but be impressed with the fact that Dr. Folwell was endowed with the powers of seer, so fully have subsequent events demonstrated the wonderful grasp his mind had upon the tendencies of the day. A few sentences from that address will not be out of place at this time.

In opening his address Dr. Folwell forecast the demands for technical education that have since become so all-pervasive. He foresaw the demand of the common people for training for their trades and the demand of the business man that the university should give him the equipment necessary to enable him to master the principles and details of a modern business con

cern.

After discussing things that the university should be and do, Dr Folwell says, "I am pre

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In justifying the state in supporting a University, Dr. Folwell says:

"I do not care to insist that the state is bound to endow the university for the same reason we used to justify her interference in primary education, viz. that university education is absolutely essential to the existence and preservation of free institutions. I am content merely to urge that university education is essential to the well-being, rather than to the being of the state; this granted, our case is made."

He also showed how far he was ahead of his time in his outlining of the nature and use of a university museum, which he said should be a real laboratory rather than a curiosity shop.

In nothing did Dr. Folwell show his far look into the future more truly than in his statement concerning the endowment of the state university. After discussing the demands of private colleges for endowments, he says,

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The University flag pole and the student soldier memorial statue.

"There is, as I have said, but one resource. The state must endow the university, and if the state will have the university in its full proportions, let her first count the cost, and take the million for her unit."

Many of those who listened to him on that December day forty years ago must have considered him decidedly visionary to talk of the state spending a million a year on its state university and yet he has lived to see that day.

Dr. Folwell foresaw the necessity for the state to combine all its forces for the prosecution of its work in higher education and quoted Dr. Andrew D. White, then president of Cornell University.

"DIVIDE YOUR RESOURCES FOR PRIMARY EDUCATION. COMBINE THEM FOR HIGHER EDUCATION."

His ideas of the functions of the university as stated so long ago are thus expressed:

"The university, then, is not merely from the people, but for the people. True it will put bread into no man's mouth directly, nor money in his palm. Neither the rains nor the sunshine do that, but they warm and nourish the the springing grass, and ripen the harvest. So higher education, generous culture, scholarship, literature, inform, inspire, and elevate communities. We found the American university, with a double purpose: the increase of material wealth and comfort, and the culture and satisfaction of the spirit."

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PLAN OF ORGANIZATION.

Throughout his administration Dr. Folwell stood consistently for the principles which he laid down in his inaugural address and through his whole administration, though so severely handicapped by the necessity for economy, he worked with wisdom and patience to lay foundations upon which others have been able to build so successfully in later years. Under the leadership of Dr. Folwell the regents adopted a plan of organization which was forty years in advance of the times.

In his history of the University, in bulletin 31 of the contributions to American Educational History, published by the U. S. government, Professor West speaks of this form of organization as follows: "The other phase of Dr.

Folwell's peculiar work was embodied in his plan of organization for the university itself, and this forms an interesting episode in the history of American universities, whether or not it was wise to press such a plan in Minnesota thirty years ago.

"The organic act, following that of Michigan University, contemplated a federation of literary, scientific, professional, and industrial colleges. The provisional organization of 18671869 had paid no attention to this, and there

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"In detail, in favor of this plan, President Folwell urged the disciplinary character of the studies of ordinary freshman and sophomore years, which allied them naturally with the work of secondary schools; the adoption of this point of separation between secondary and superior institutions abroad; the fact that American experience already recognized the separation, both by the distinction in the studies of the two halves of the college course and also by confining electives practically to the two later years; the gain

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was no necessity for doing so at that stage. President Folwell, however, desired to organize at once, on paper at least, in accord with this broad design. The charter, permitting any desired number of colleges, specified a department of elementary instruction; a department of science, literature, and arts; a college of law; a college of medicine; a college of agriculture, and a college of mechanic arts.

"The essence of Dr. Folwell's peculiar plan was to plan for turning over as soon as possible to the expected state high schools the lower two years of ordinary college work, and meantime to include them at once with the other preparatory work in a temporary "collegiate depart ment," and to begin the various colleges of the university work, in arts, law, medicine, engineering, etc., on this basis, or at the beginning of the usual junior year.

"The ultimate purpose, of course, so far as the university was concerned, was to raise the standard of the professional schools and to secure time and place for the development of real university work along various lines of graduate research.

to youth of both sexes in longer study under home influences; the conciliation of those religious denominations which were unwilling that youths should enter any school not under church influences, but which might be more willing for men to do so; the simplifying the problems of university discipline and instruction which would result when the work of boys could be finally separated from that of men; the extrication of the professional colleges of law and medicine from the slough into which they had fallen in this country; the opportunity that would be afforded the multitude of small colleges, which never could sustain a strong and complete college course, to accept with dignity and usefulness the office of advanced secondary schools, and, finally, the greater possibilities for the development of true university work beyond the baccalaureate graduation.

THE REGENTS APPROVE THE PLAN.

"This is a brief synopsis of the plea for such an organization foreshadowed by the new president at his inauguration of December 22, 1869, at the close of his first three months' term. A few weeks later Dr. Folwell presented for the

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