The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1913-01-19

can you seeure an institution strong
enough to give your young men an6
young women an education worthy Of
your state and our common country
1T requires a large sur of money
these days TO equip the libraries, la.
boratories, collections of illustrative
material and apparatus of all sorts re-
/ CURED in such institutions, as we'll as
to attract really competent men to the
professional chairs.
Now, to support the three institu-
tons above named involves a dupli-
cation or duplication of all these
things.
Each institution, to be at all worthy
of your state, must have It's own la
boratories for chemistry, natural phil
osophy, natural history, civil and
mechanical engineering, electricity,
etc, etc.
nesota wrote:
Il hope the state of Montana will
make no mistake in deciding the loca-
ton of her institutions of collegiate
and polytechnic education.
"As Ezra Cornell has pointed out,
concentration is the principle tina,
should control.
Scatter your common schools into
every nook and corner; multiply your
high schools so that they shall be gen.
eral, and accessible to the homes of
the people. These schools are capable
of subdivision and diffusion. Not so
with the university. It is an insti-
tuition which is weakened, if not de-
stroyed by division. In these days,
(and the truth will grow more appar-
ent in the f%uture,) the income of
many million dollars is necessary
to maintain a university of respectable
magnitude. We are spending $780,
600 this year, and actually need double
that amount to do the work pressing
upon us, as it ought to be done. A
large body of teachers, a great library,
museum, laboratories and appliances
are Indispensable. If you concentrate
all your university departments into
n university you will hardly be able
to find means to maintain it.
If this is true, is it not a mistaken
policy to attempt the maintenance of
two or three institutions? All of them
will be starved and dwarfed unless
some one gets a pull on the legisla-
ture n obtains an excessive share of
the available funds. M of two things
will result-you will have one great
strong enough to
freeze out the others, or you will
powerful rivals contending from
year to year for the division of the
money.
There is another consideration.
If you establish two or more in
stitutions they will be to a great
extent duplicates of one another.
If, in addition to a university, YOU
found a school of mines, and a third
school or college of agriculture, all
three must have a board of trustees,
president, professors Of physics, chem
istry, mathematics, botany, zoology,
astronomy, economics, science of gov-
eminent, English, rhetoric and elocu-
ton, modern languages, engineering,
drawing, etc, etc. Each of them mus,
have a library and a number of la
n Conservatives, and
these in our day are costly establish
1T Is simply reckless waste of re-
sources to duplicate these chairs Of
instruction and these appliances and
to maintain them to the end Of time.
Let me repeat. do all you can, you
Will not be able to fully and ade-
quately support one institution. If
you try three you will have three
Kilkenny cats" or n big concern
and two starvelings.
What | have thus hastily thrown
is the result of twenty-five
years study and observation on the
subject. am confident that a COM
parison of the institutions in our diff
ferent states will support the con-
clusion."