The Daily clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1866-1888, 1880-01-31

1911 lDtvVJ
1873 ............................ 5000
1879 5000
lotal........... Zlo,ZVO
With $4,000, the gift Of the State, the
very valuable property Of the oakland Col
lege, with ample buildings and lands, were
purchased at a great bargain, thus secur-
! ing 70 Alcorn College property worth
probably twice as much as the cost Of all
the buildings your memoralists propose 70
erect and the land purchased by them for
the College whose interests have been
confded ~ them 50 that if your Hon
orable Bodies should appropriate for
real estate for this Institution $3.50.
900, the amount given TO Alcorn College,
this Institution would still receive very
much less in value than Alcorn College has
received, after excluding appropriations
for repairs and running expenses.
This has been just, proper, wise and no.
Bile work for the benefit Of the laboring
classes Of our colored fellow-ctizens. But
your wisdom will show you that the welfare
Of the youth Of the laborng classes Of the
white race also demands your fostering,
patriotic care, aud that the sum now asked
for Is truly modest when considered in
view Of all these premises.
TUITION, LABOR AND BOARD.
Your Memorialists deem proper to add
here that in order 10 secure the greatest
good to all, and to promote the best inter.
ests Of the State, tuition must be furnished
free TO all students Of the State; hence there
can be no income from this source,
Careful investigation induces ~ to le-
Iieye that most students will be able by
their labor, to defray their expenses for
board, and some TO do even more.
They propose to employ Steward and
such assistants rs may be needed, at diaries
or wages, to procure food at wholesale
prices, (but most Of which, after getting
the farm into full operation, may By grown
on the premises, and thus greatly reduce
the COST and TO furnish board at absolute
cost Thus, good, wholesome boird may
be had at about five dollars per month.
EXPERIMENTAL FARM.
Most Of the farm should be employed for
food crops for the use of the college. But a
small portion should be reserved, as the act
Of incorporation contemplates, for expert
mental purposes, and very many useful,
valuable experiments should be made con.
tinually, on this pOrtion,M.
These experiments, oftourse, will cost
something, but we think that it may all be
managed satisfactorily with the sum asked
for by your'Memorialsts, small AS it may
seem, and in reality, is, when compared
with the expenses Of conducting many sim
liar instilnl:ons both in America and
Europe.
Having shown to your honorable bodie.
what we have done, and the means we pro
pose to use to accomplish the work entrust
ed to us, we beg to be permitted to MAKE
some suggestions rs to the necessity anC
Importance of the education proposed in the
A. and NJ. College.
1t cannot be denied that the agricultural
and mechanical interests are not in Il pros
porous condition I'M Mississippi. 1t is also
sad truth that rural or agricultural pur
suits are becoming, year alter year, more
! and more unattractive not to say repeLant
This results, in the main, from two causes
first agriculture is not profitable; second
! the system now pursued is molc a contest
between muscle aud mere brute force, and
the opposing forces of nature resisting the
J production of crops than of an intelligent
application of the best means to attain the
desired END. There is, in short, a want of
intelligent labor, and want of the stimu-
lus OF intellectual exercise in agricultural
pursuits, The system of agriculture now
prevailing came down to us from period
when our lands were fresh and fertile, and
needed only the application of muscular or
brute force for the production of crops.
This system will not do when our lands,
from long cultivation, have become ex-
hausted,
There must be naugurated better sys.
tenn all, we believe, will admit this. How
are we to do this? Il is respectfully sub
mitted that this can only be done in the
same way that other countries have followed
in similar circumstances.
Scotland is a poor country, barren in soil
aud with but little mineral wealth, But
from the time of John Knox it has been
that part of her primary ANA university
education is directed "to those studies
which the people intend chiefly to pursue
for the profit OF the commonwealth"
The same system has for a long time been
pursued in Switzerland and by it she has
become rich and prosperous nation.
In Holland, France, Germany and Eng
land the advantages of schools and colleges
for the education of the industrial classes
in the pursuits they are to follow in life
have been long perceived, and such insti-
trtiOns are numerous and successful.
Professor Playfair says: "The secondary
or higher education of the industrial classes
should bear on their occupations in life
ordinary education reposes more
on words than things, When working men
get higher liIe-a life of intelligence and
knowledge, then they can develop improve
ments in their industries by an economical
application of force and wise use of prop.
critics in materials; whereas, with lower
life, one Of only animal instincts and man
ipulatiye dexterity, they are kept in mere
subsection to the effects produced around
them, without their minds being able in
the slightest degree to modify or expand
them.
"0ur object is not to convert our laborers
by continual training into a superior class
of ambidextrous monkeys, but TO give them
an intelligent force and dignity by impart-
ing to them thorough understanding of
the principles. which underie ali their
work"
We would also train and bring into ac-
tivity the faculties of observation as APP
piled to the operations of nature. He who
is accustomed to oberve natural forces and
their operations, will, at every step of his