slaves and applied itself to war, literature, and art, and, to a moderate degree, to the most elevating business in which a people can engage-that is to say, commerce upon the high seas. V. Other than as given in schools for the defective or delinquent classes, it has been shown how technical instruction in the United States has been broadening down from the education of a few chemists and surveyors toward the instruction of a number of young men who are taught by manual and visual familiarity the business at which they are to earn their daily bread in future life. It would be but to repeat what is already well known to attempt to show how such instruction for boys of 14 or 15 years was systematized by the introduction of the Russian system as in operation at the Strogonoff School at Moscow, and the effect of the kindergarten and industrial drawing propaganda awakened by the experiments of Massachusetts and several of our great cities, but there is one feature connected with the growth of technical instruction in the United States which is of special interest. In Europe trade schools have long existed, and are mainly supported by the community in which they are located, for they have been established in order to teach the industries peculiar to their environment. Indeed, many of the so-called industrial schools of Europe are only complementary to an apprenticeship. They are merely drawing schools for apprentices in decorative or industrial fine art, or are courses of elementary lectures on the scientific facts underlying industrial operations of a far more substantial kind. At these complementary schools the apprentice, after the completion of his day's work, or on Sunday, is taught to design or is told in an entertaining way of the principles which guide the work at which he has spent the day or week. It thus appears that the instruction given by the American "manual training school" is very much more generalized than that given in Europe. Yet this is not the special point adverted to above. That point is that only in the United States has any wide attempt been made to inaugurate a comprehensive system of instruction which would be for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts; and the basis of this provision is even more material than the history of the motives and the course of legislation which allowed the provision to be made. This basis was the possession of large bodies of land by the Federal Government given to it by the States or purchased by it to consolidate its territory. The people inhabiting this country when it was discovered were regarded by the European Governments as feræ naturæ, and the title of the land upon which they ranged being in European law vacant, they granted it, not by local metes and bounds as in Europe, but by parallels of latitude which they suspected ran from the Atlantic to another ocean. Some acquaintance with the eastern coast, indeed, made it possible to be less lavish in granting the continent away; but the inexhaustible supply of territory perpetuated the liberal spirit that had from the very beginning prevailed. It was therefore natural that communities, poor in purse but rich in good will and land, should use their surplus for fostering education. The first public school of Boston was endowed with public land, the college at Cambridge during the first century and a half of its existence received nearly 100 square miles, and one year before the Puritans landed upon the New England coast 10,000 acres had been granted by the Virginia Company to found an English university in America. Nor did this munificence stop with the endowment of the schools; the Boston schoolmaster, the Cambridge president, and the university superintendent were also endowed, the first with 30, the second with 500, and the third with 300 acres. But of all the grants of public land for education two stand preeminent. One of these is thought to have laid the foundation of the school systems of the States which were formed from the Northwest Territory and settled by a people bred to believe in public schools, and the other, though granted for the purpose of benefiting agriculture and the mechanic arts, is considered with the same show of reason to have promoted the study of science, for their "leading object shall be ED 95-38* to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts." Various interpretations have been put upon this act. In some cases State universities have been founded, in other cases old State universities have been endowed; sometimes the school which has been established is almost entirely an agricultural school, in other cases it is almost entirely an institution for technical instruction. In Missouri an institution already in existence was charged with the agricultural branch of the work and an institute of technology established in another part of the State, while in Massachusetts an institute of technology already in being was intrusted with work of giving technical instruction and an agricultural college established at a distance. But whatever differences in organization may appear, owing to the generality of the terms of the act or inadvertency, this much remainsthat these schools have never been anything but schools of agricultural and mechanical engineering. The trade school of Europe-the school for the common people, the caste school, the school for the "industrial classes"-has no or next to no following in America. VI. The first attempt to investigate and in a measure, probably, to coordinate the work of the schools established for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts was made by this Bureau. Commissioner Eaton had the fortune to secure the services of an agent in the person of Prof. D. C. Gilman, who reported at some length upon their condition, advising that a report such as his own be made at least once in ten years. At the date of his report, November 1, 1871, 28 States of the 34 having received the land grant were known to have taken definite steps toward the establishment of such colleges as the act of Congress in 1862 contemplated. Those efforts had been usually put forth in good faith, but in some States the unsettled condition of affairs, and in others vague notions respecting the possibility of securing the end in view had been a disturbing factor. A great difficulty had been experienced in securing the services of accomplished and able men as professors in the departments of science of the institutions, which to Professor Gilman appeared to be one of the greatest obstacles which impede the success of the new movement. In almost every State the national grant had been added to the funds of some existing institution, in order that by the concentration of resources greater power may be acquired; but almost invariably, in cases, the Congressional funds, with others, expressly given for scientific purposes, have been separately invested and employed, so that they may not be diverted to classical or literary studies. The reporter deprecates the use of the term agricultural colleges, and hopes that something more proper as well as generic will be adopted, such as "national," "governmental," or "United States," as a prefix for a class of colleges so largely indebted to the Congressional endowment. The first want felt in the establishment of this class of schools was the education of men of science to man them, but the first purpose for which they were established was the instruction of able, educated, trustworthy technologists, such as well-informed engineers, architects, mechanicians, manufacturers, miners, agriculturists, and the like for which the country was at that time loudly calling. The third need was the education of skillful laborers, men who add to dexterity and muscular ability an appreciation of their work, an acquaintance more or less profound with the nature of the materials, the natural laws underlying the manufacturers' processes, etc. It was safe to say that at the date of 1871 in all the institutions enjoying the benefit of the act of 1862, the second or technological need was being met. Some of the institutions also appear to have had closely in mind the wants of those who are to labor with their hands upon the farm and in the workshop, and there was one or more in which the presence of a post-graduate Now president of the Johns Hopkins University, but then a professor in the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, his report for the Bureau being "vacation work." course indicated a desire to supply men of science. In other institutions agriculture predominated over the mechanic arts, and this variation seemed to Professor Gilman to be about to be made more manifest in the future, and he regarded it on the whole, as desirable that cach national college should have an office and aim of its own based upon a careful study of the want of the State in which it is located. In regard to agriculture, Professor Gilman observes: "There is no doubt that many of those who urged upon Congress the bestowal of a grant of land to the several States were deeply interested in the culture of the soil. There is also no doubt that in many cases the end to be gained was better understood than the means which should be employed, or, in other words, that the theory of agriculture was vaguely worked out." As to the military feature of the law of 1862, Professor Gilman found that it had given a great deal of trouble, and, as far as his observation had gone, in most of the States the repeal would be welcome. VII. Professor Gilman was perfectly correct in prognosticating that as time elapsed the institutions he had reported upon would tend to direct their energies along one certain line rather than another. The absolute necessity of making a good secondary education the base of a good technological education, everywhere recognized-in Germany, England, and France-the inability of the country boy to get such an education at home, the literary character of the corps of the instructors, all tended to make secondary instructions, properly so called, play a very important part in this class of institutions, especially in those which had been connected with a higher institution of learning. Technology was rescued from the fate of agriculture by the wave of enthusiasm for manual training and the happy exhibition at the Centennial Exposition of the Stroganoff School of Della Vos's scheme of manual instruction without a view to remuneration. But agriculture lagged behind until Congress again came to its aid by passing two laws, one known as the Hatch Act and the other as the Morrill Act. These and the law of 1862, to which they are supplementary, are the financial foundation of the schools created for the "liberal and practical education of the industrial classes" and thereby "for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts." A conspectus of these laws is given for convenience of reference. Federal laws regarding institutions created by the act of 1862 and modified or enlarged by those of 1887 and 1890. Ten per cent or less of the entire gross proceeds of The interest of the entire remaining gross proceeds An annual report shall be made regarding the prog- There may be expended out of the first annual ap- There shall be established under the direction of the The amounts annually received by each designated An annual report shall be made by the president of 3. The conditions attached to the grant. The State legislature must formally accept the grant 3. Conditions attached to the subsidy. The legislature of each State must formally accept Each station shall annually, on or before February 1, Bulletins shall be published by each station at least 3. The conditions attached to the subsidy. The State legislature must formally accept the grants, 4. Federal jurisdiction. The Secretary of the Interior is charged with the |