The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1895-04-15
What Has Been Done, What is Doing
and What Might Be Done.
Narrow Ideas Prevailed at Its Inception But There is Now
An Opportunity to Make it Really State School,
Has Already Had Funds to the Amount Of Half Million But Trains
Only Hundred Pupils and Growth Has Stopped.

distinct agricultural colleges. In Others
the agricultural college was simply an
attachment to another university. In
Rhode Island the agricultural college was
part of Brown University at the time OF
the passage OF the Hatch act. All
such agricultural colleges were
founded and maintained on the
basis of fund derived under the pro-
visions OF an act known as the Land Grant
act, passed in 1862, by which every State
was given 10000 acres of public land for
each Senator and Representative IL had in
Congress. The fund so derived, known
as the Morrill, fund after Senator, then
Representative, Morrill, OF Vermont, who
initiated the measure in 1887 and
fought it through to a passage in
| 1862, amounted TO different sums in
different states according TO the number
OF Representatives, and also according to
how profitably the land thus apportioned
was disposed of. Through the unselfish
enterprise of New Yorker, Cornell, who
bought the scrip for the land and held
on to il for a rise, Cornell University was
established and endowed. Over two
hundred thousand dollars was
secured from the land by Massa-
chusetts, Rhode Island received
public lands so decided, and this scrip
was turned over to Brown University.
/ The University derived $4,000 from the
sale of this land and tho interest of this
fund was used by the State to educate
| "beneficiaries" at Brown, in accordance
! with the design of the Morrill, bill.
| Now, on the passage of the Experiment
| Station act the Assembly appointed a
| committee to investigate and report what
action should be taken, "that the agri-
| cultural interests of the State may derive
the greatest benefit in carrying out the
| provisions OF this act and also to learn
"what disposition is now made OF the
| income derived from the land grant fund" !"
| The result of the investigation was that IL
| would be wise TO build State Agricultu-
raj School to which the newly provided
experiment station should be attached,
rather than attach the station to Brown
| University. The act of 1888 establishing
such a school followed and work on the
building of the Experiment Station began
in the following spring.
Tho act of 1892, making the "Rhode
Island College of Agriculture and Me-
! chanic arts" out of the "State Agricul-
tural School" was passed 10 make avail
| able the land scrip fund of 1862, and a
subsequent fund, designed for the same
| object, to be referred to later, which were
| surrendered to tho State for the new
college by Brown University after
a discussion, the relation or merits OF
which need not be gone into.
| The State appoints no more beneficiaries
at Brown University, and the State
School at Kingston is supposed TO sup
ply all the educational necessities for the
agricultural and industrial classes.
1t is interesting to note in passing,
however, that while one OF the chief
arguments made to secure the Morrill,
fund for the State School was
| that of 2i0 students appointed
by the Assembly as beneficiaries
OF the agricultural, or land scrip fund,
the managers of the State College were
"unable to find one who has applied him.
self to agriculture" after being gradu-
ated, first annual report 1889, page 2l).
Not one OF the present freshman class at
| the State Agricultural School has elected
| to take agricultural!