STRANGE INACCURACIES.

The inaccuracies and the diametrically false impression of the above might, perhaps, pass unchallenged among the many equally gross ones on other subjects, did they not stand as types of the false impressions of many who are not well informed. As specimens of the inaccuracies of the article on other subjects, I give only four. On page 171, Justice Miller puts wheat first and corn second in agricultural and commercial importance. But, in fact, ten bushels of corn are raised to one of wheat, and corn is increasing while wheat is decreasing in area and productiveness. Again, he says, page 174: "The colleges (denominational) are unable to give salaries sufficient to command the services of competent professors; all of them are struggling inefficiently, with one or two exceptions," etc. Salaries are indeed low, as in all States west of the Alleghenies, but several Iowa colleges rank very high in the number of their students, the talent of their professors, and the excellence of their work-fully as high as the average of other States west of the Alleghenies. On the same page he says: "The Congregationalists have in Cornell University,' at Grinnell, a fairly successful college." The only "Cornell University" in the land is the great institution at Ithaca, N. Y., of which all Americans are justly proud. Cornell College is at Mt. Vernon, Iowa, is a Methodist institution, a thoroughly excellent and prosperous college. The Congregationalists have a college at Grinnell, but its name is not "Cornell University," but "Iowa College." It is the oldest college and one of the very best in the State, the peer of almost any college in the land for the learning of its faculty, the excellence of its equipments, the thoroughness of its courses and the worth of its graduates.

On the same page Mr. Justice Miller says that the State University "has not been very fortunate in the manner in which it has been conducted by the trustees appointed by the State."

What will our neighbors think of us when our distinguished former citizen says, in substance, of the State University, "mismanaged"; of the State Agricultural College, "growth retarded and usefulness obstructed by intestine controversies"? and of our distinctively Christian colleges, "struggling inefficiently," and with "incompetent professors"?

UNINTENTIONAL BUT DAMAGING INJUSTICE.

No one believes Justice Miller intended to hurt the colleges of Iowa. He has hurt them seriously. His twenty-seven years ab

sence, from the time since Mr. Lincoln called him to the Supreme Court, may possibly explain, but cannot possibly excuse such ignorance of fact. The facts were easily accessible to one who really determined to write a truthful sketch of the great State of Iowa. Justice Miller is familiar with the stiff Latin, but sound law, of the maxim: Ignoransia legis neminem excusat: "Ignorance of the law excuses no one." The same is true of ignorance of facts. It excuses no historian. Amid so many harmful inaccuracies, what he says of the Agricultural College might pass unchallenged, but that his several mistakes in regard to it stand as types of popular misapprehensions, which it seems proper, and indeed important, to correct in this official State publication.

DATE OF ORGANIZATION.

(1) "Organized by the State five or six years ago." The facts are that the State act established the Agricultural College thirty-one years ago; the congressional grant, twenty-seven years ago, laid the basis for the mechanical and military departments, and strengthened the agricultural; and the College in its present form was opened for instruction twenty-one years ago.

MODE OF SUPPORT.

(2) "Supported by the sale of lands donated by the government." The great wisdom of our trustees' management of the congressional land grant lay in the fact that they did not sell the land, like most other States, at fifty to seventy cents per acre, but leased it at eight per cent annually, in advance, on an appraisal of about three dollars per acre-far higher than it could possibly have been sold for then.

KIND OF INSTRUCTION REQUIRED.

(3) "Has not developed great capacity for instruction in agricultural labor and science." An untold damage to this and every other agricultural college has grown out of the above assumption, that our chief or only mission is to give "instruction in agricultural labor," to teach mere farm processes, ordinary hand-work, requiring merely knack and practice. This assumption has hurt us with the farmers. They have said: "Unless you do that chiefly you pervert trust funds." It has hurt us with those who desire other technological and scientific instruction. They have said: "As you teach only agriculture, we will go elsewhere." The mischief has lurked

partly in the name "Agricultural College"; a partial, inadequate, misleading name, adopted, not by Congress, but afterward, simply for brevity. Three things, not one alone, are required in our organic law: agriculture, mechanic arts, military tactics. The two first are required and made equal; the third is required as an essential. Not agriculture and the mechanic arts" themselves, however, but such branches of learning as are related to them.

AN INADEQUATE AND MISLEADING NAME.

The name "Agricultural" College is as partial, inadequate, and misleading as would be the terms "mechanical" or "military" college. The exact words of the organic law of Congress are that the interest of the land-grant fund "shall inviolably be 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 legislatures of the States may provide, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life."

Referring directly to this congressional law for its authority, the legislature of Iowa, in 1884, passed the following law, still in force, and imperatively regulating our course of study now:

SECTION 621. That there shall be adopted and taught at the State Agricultural College a broad, liberal and practical course of study, in which the leading branches of learning shall relate to agriculture and the mechanic arts, and which shall also embrace such other branches of learning as will most practically and liberally educate the agricultural and industrial classes in the several pursuits of life, including military tactics.

In absolute fidelity to the letter and spirit of these, our organic laws, as passed by Congress and State legislature, are all the affairs of this College, financial, literary, scientific, and practical, now managed. Not simple processes in agriculture, horticulture, and the mechanic arts, learned better and more cheaply in shop or on farm; not these do we teach largely, but related science, underlying principles, and processes too intricate or difficult for the unskilled, uneducated laborer. Thus alone can we fulfill our true mission.

SYSTEM OF INSTRUCTION DEVISED.

(4) "Either because no sufficient system of instruction has been devised." Our system is the result of the best efforts of the wisest educators in the new world and the old for nearly a century. Industrial education is a century old. Agricultural education in colleges is not half a century old.

Literary and professional education is very many centuries old. Agricultural education is most difficult, youngest, least perfected. It is an untried and difficult field. We are gaining in wisdom and shall gain by more experience.

INTESTINE CONTROVERSIES.

(5) "Or because the intestine controversies among the trustees, presidents, and professors," etc. From all I can learn there has been less controversy, fewer changes in faculty, and greater steadiness in purpose here than in most State institutions.

OBSTRUCTED USEFULNESS.

(6) "Have retarded its growth and obstructed its usefulness." Its growth has been retarded only by the capacity of its dormitories and accommodations. Of this, more hereafter. Its usefulness has not been obstructed. Eighteen classes have graduated 473; twentysix per year on the average. This year's class graduated forty-five members and three second degree graduates in the course; the largest class in the history of the College. More than half of the graduates down to 1886 entered agriculture and the manual and mechanical industries, including agricultural professorships and editorships, and less than half entered the learned professions, including law, medicine, theology, teaching, journalism, banking, and all other professions and clerical callings. Of our regular classical colleges nearly all the graduates enter the latter callings, and scarcely 2 per cent enter the mechanical industries. Of only two recent graduating classes, 1887 and 1889, have I at hand the statistics of intended or chosen work in life. These two classes, with their six post-graduates, number ninety-one. The industrial character of the course of study, and of the atmosphere of the College, can be seen by the occupations in life already chosen by the members of these two classes, as follows:

Total of agricultural, mechanical, and industrial callings.. 60

As to the industrial character of the callings named in the first of the above lists, there can, I think, be no question, unless it be in regard to veterinary medicine. A veterinary physician and surgeon is in some just sense a "professional" man. But his work is clearly for the promotion of the best interests of agriculture. It will be readily conceded that in no way could this college more effectively promote the agricultural wealth and welfare of Iowa than by sending forth each year a band of thoroughly equipped scientific veterinarians to supplant quacks and save life, prevent contagion, and promote health among our domestic animals. Iowa's wealth lies in her farm live stock. Proper care of its health increases our agricultural prosperity and our material wealth.

GARFIELD ON OUR PROPER WORK.

That broad-minded statesman, James A. Garfield, had this to say of proper work, in an address June 14, 1867, five years after the congressional land grants were made, two years before our College began the work of instruction:

In the next place I inquire, what kinds of knowledge are necessary for carrying on and improving the useful arts and industries of life? I am well aware of the current notion that these muscular arts should stay in the fields