The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-02-05
WILSON RAPS COLLEGES
SAYS MONEY GIVEN TO EDU- CATE FARMERS IS SPENT
 OTHERWISE.
Predicts That Diamonds Will Be Made in This Country aud That
 Tea Will Be Picked
 With Reapers.

Washington Special to New York Times. The House Committee on Agriculture to-day made public Secretary Wilson's aodress before 1t on the work Of the Asrlcultural Department, delivered In ex- ecutive session a few weeks ago. The iun report shows that the secretary in- uuised Tn lively comments on many sub- 1ects. Incidentally he sharply criticised the work of colleges in general.
 We are helping institutions of edu- cation throughout the country" he said.
 Seven years ago there was not lec- ture delivered anywhere in the United states on metereology. We have furnish ca the services of fourteen gentlemen to lecture in universities and colleges in the states along those lines for the purpose or having eventually scholars in the land along those lines.
 nave never had any mercy on in- stitutions that take money from the Fed erai government and do not use 1t for the purpose for which Congress appro- priated 1t. and I have laid the lash un- sparingiy on any Cornell man have ever met, no matter where or when. They were better endowed than any institution In the land, and should be doing the best work of any institution in the land, yet never did anything They have dis
 
 an extent that, in despair. it had to go and establish an experimental station un- der It's own auspices at Geneva.
 we sent man down to start them in soil physics. inquired how he was get ting along and found that he got seven- ty-nve students within a few days and had to shut the door. That is all any one man can teach, and I think 1t is rather more. Now, we will let that man get those people well started along and then will bring him back or they will have to pay his salary"
 He praised the work of the experiment tai stations. and added:
 T wish the colleges were doing as we'll The colleges are doing better than they have been, but the disposition to educate lawyers and doctors and scientists and preachers and typewriters still prevails in the land little more than 1t should. That money goes from Washington to these institutions to educate the farmer and the mechanic-that is the intention of it. and because as general thing there b; no fee charged people who want a free education are apt to sneak in and then start off in some other direction when they get through.
 T remember being at Berkeley, Cal, when President Mckinley was there last oAAN Sd W a CtacS OA 1OU SIduudlco. bcThS- ley gets $75,000 a year from Washington There was not farmer in the lot, not one.
 T want to see every mortal thing that is produced or can be produced on Amer ican soil produced here that we want to use. We have been paying $1O0.0OO 900 a year and more for the winds and waters that blow and flow over the country that are changed by foreigners into sugar Why should we pay that hundred mill lion? A fourth of all We import can be grown in the United States. The $20O, ,OOO,- 900 worth that we cannot produce in the United States can be produced in these new island groups of ours.
 'Of course our ladies want to buy feathers and diamonds and laces and all that from foreign countries. but there is no reason why these things should not be- made here some day"
 Including diamonds, I suppose?" said Chairman Wadsworth.
 Including diamonds" answered Mir. Wilson.
 We are just setting out big tea orchard in Texas" continued Mir. Wilson. 'I expect to live to see the day when we win pick tea with a span of horses and a reaping machine, going down one side and coming up the other.''
 In speaking of agricultural chemistry, the Secretary said:
 We have hardly an agricultural chem ist in the world; it is a new science. When man who makes his living by work ing the field comes to me with his trou- ble yoke up a scientist with him, and we come right along against propositions that never have been solved because scientists in the past have never proven anything
 In an allusion to hydrophobia he said:
 ''If you muzzle every dog in the Dis trict of Colombia and allow no other dog to come, rabbies will not come in. You could do that. The love for the pup is stronger than the love for man, woman, or child in the District of Columbia, and dogs cannot be muzzled here.''