The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1875-03-18
our Agricultural Colleges.

The committee on education and labor Of
the National house of representatives was
instructed in February, 1874, to inquire in
to the condition and management of the
agricultural colleges in the several states.
In 1862 law passed by congress, transfer
ring to the states certain area of the pub
lie lands, the proceeds from the sale of
which were to be used in founding col
! leges for instruction in agricultural and
mechanical arts 1t was into the condition
of these institutions that the committee
was directed to look, and their report, sign
ed by Messrs. Monroe, George +. Hoar,
Storm, Whitehead, and others, has been
published. From an abstract of the docu-
ment, published in the New York Eceaiag
Post, we gather some interesting facts.
The committee directed their inquiries to
two lines of information, the use of which
the states had made of the money obtained
from the sale of the lands, and the results
I of such use. A wide difference was no.
ticeable in the first place in the amount re-
allied from the land grants Rhode Island.
| for instance, obtaining only AL cents per
acre tor its land, while Minnesota realized
S562 per acre on part of its land. A
variety of reasons are assigned to explain
this wide variation in values the differ
ence being due in large number of cases
| to msmanagement Such states as were
able to select public lands within their own
boundaries were able to select better lands,
and could arrange better terms with the
buyers. Those states which accepted the
L.,
because there was no well regulated sys-
TEN for the sale of it, and much of it
passed into the hands of spectators in
stead of actual settlers. In most of the
states the money obtained was invested sat
isfactorily, some of the states placing the
money in United States bonds, and some in
their own state bonds. The latter course
has entailed serious loss in some of the
Southern states, Alabama, for example, re-
ceiyed S216, 900 from the sale of its land
scrip, and invested it in its bonds at So per
cent, which are now selling at 80 cents.
Louisiana holds state bonds representing
par value of 1927 900 as the proceeds OF
its land scrip but the best of the bonds
are worth only twenty-siX cents or the
dollar. Similar losses, less IN extent, have
occurred in Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi,
Tennessee and Virginia. In only two
states have the funds been squandered-
North and South Carolina. The former
state placed the funds in securities which
are now substantially valueless and the
latter state put the money into its own
bonds at 81 per cent, which bonds never
yielded any income, and finally disappear
ed altogether in some way not accounted
for. The committee maintain that the
states can be held responsible for the mis-
management of their agents.
In estimating the results accomplished
by these land grants the committee have
to meet the difficulty of distinguishing ''be-
tween results achieved by older institutions,
of which the colleges endowed by the land
grant now form department, and results
obtained by those colleges themselves.
They find no cause for dscouragemeut
however. The number of pupils now at
tending these schools is between three and
four thousand, and they have furnished
more than sixteen hundred graduates to the
active occupations of life.
The cost of educating students at these
colleges varies from $40 each per annum
in Kentucky, to S293.2S in Pennsylvania
the average being SllS.43. In regard to
race determinations, the returns show that
at fifteen of these institutions colOred stu
dents would be admitted that at nine,
none have applied at two, they would
not be admitted, because provision has
been made for them elsewhere at two,
there are no regulations for their exclusion
and at one the terms of admission have
not been settled. AS TO the interesting
question whether the students OF these ag-
ricultural colleges became agriculturists,
the statistics in the appendix shows that OF
the sixteen hundred graduates about seven
hundred and fifty are engaged in practical
agricultural pursuits, and of the three or
four thousand students now in attendance
ON the schools, about seventeen hundred
and fifty are devoting themselves to purely
agricultural course. This statement indi-
Gates that the students are very evenly d.
vided between agricultural and mechanical
pursuits. If the proportion of those who
enter directly upon agriculture is smaller
than might be wished, 1t is certain that the
different departments of industry cannot
fail to receive some benefit from the ac-
cessions of trained and educated workers.
Whether the benefit is proportional to the
cost is question which il would neither
be Just to raise, nor possible to answer UNI
til the experiment has had longer trial.
|