The Brookings register. [volume] (Brookings, Brookings County, S.D.) 1903-1971, 1905-01-05
land-grant colleges to supply this lack
of instruction in engineering.
WHAT CONGRESS SAYS.

OF instruction in engineering.
WHAT CONGRESS SAYS.
Congress then, in endowing these col
leges, specified also their two principal
and coordinate lines of work, and, as
. stated on page 1880 Of the government
report above referred to, Every state
accepted the grant on the conditions
specified by Congress, and in doing
so, entered into contract obligation
with the United States to make such a
college part of its system of public
education"
THE GENERAL PRACTICE OF THE
STATES.
| An examination of the United States
education report for 1902 shows that
the states have very generally respect
ed their obligation in this matter and
a communication sent out by the De-
partment of the Interior last June and
signed by the United States Commits
sioner of Education, says: with
the exception of Connecticut all of the
states provide instruction in agricul-
) ture and engineering in the land
grant colleges" And the Secretary Of
Agriculture wrote under date OF June
IL, 1904, "There is no doubt in my
mind that Congress in endowing agri-
cultural colleges intended to have en-
gineering courses taught in Them"
WHAT THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA
SAYS.
The state of South Dakota in accept
ing the grants of Congress and there
by entering into contract relations
with the general government, proceed
ed to recognize this two-fold purpose
OF the Agricultural College by enacting
a statute that both agricultural and
engineering subjects should be taught
at the college. That law is found on
page 1l2 of the Revised Code. 1t re-
quires that instruction to be given in
agriculture and the natural sciences
connected Herewith, also in the indus
trial arts, and pecifically names civil
engineering. An examination of the
standard AUTHORITIES of the date cor
responding with the date of the enact
ment OF this statute shows that at that
time engineering was divided into two
classes, civil engineering and military
engineering, just as government may
be divided into two classes, civil gov
ernment and military government,
and that civil engineering at that time
embraced all branches of the subject
not included in military engineering.
This i he sense in which the term is
! still used by the London Institution
OF Civil Engineers, the most eminent
[ engineering body in the world. The
: Legislature undoubtedly meant to fol-
low the Act Of Congress and place both
the Agriculture and the engineering
at the land-grant college.
WE KNOW OUR LIMITATIONS.
Both state and national laws, then,
point out clearly the two-fold purpose
of these land-grant colleges. We there
fore know our limitations. 1t is not
our privilege or our ambition to be-
come a university. This needs to be
said here to disabuse the minds ofany
who, because we aim to carry on our
own legitimate lines of work to their
highest excellence and to their best and
final results, may fear that we are try
ing to become university. Such is
by no means the case. To the great
university must go the scores and
multitudes of subjects that contribute
TO liberal education. TO the great
university must go all the groups of
the professional schools. The scope
Of our proper work is limited to the
two lines indicated, namely, agricul-
ture and engineering. Along those
two definite lines it is our ambition to
do the best and the highest work, to
take the first rank and to be OF the
greatest possible service to the state.
THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE NOT A
UNIVERSITY.
| The great modern university must
offer many hundreds OF courses of
study embracing all the great Ian
guages and literature of the world both
ancient and modern, and all the his
tory and philosophy and political
science and economies and sociology,
and sciences and fine arts and archae-
ology and ethnology and all the rest
of the wide world OF liberal learning.
To this list must be added the entire
groups of the professional schools, as
law, medicine, dentistry and so on.
The university embraces "Whatever
touches life with upward impulse. Be
he nowhere also, God is in all that
liberates and lifts, in all that humbles,
sweetens and CONSOLES
Broad is the proper work Of the
University, our college occupies
more restricted field. We are properly
limited to agriculture and engineering
with the sciences that bear upon those
subjects and the languages that are
necessary to an understanding of the
literature OF those subjects.