xt7ghx15n565_116 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7ghx15n565/data/mets.xml https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7ghx15n565/data/0000ua001.dao.xml unknown 9.56 Cubic Feet 33 boxes archival material 0000ua001 English University of Kentucky Property rights reside with the University of Kentucky. The University of Kentucky holds the copyright for materials created in the course of business by University of Kentucky employees. Copyright for all other materials has not been assigned to the University of Kentucky. For information about permission to reproduce or publish, please contact the Special Collections Research Center.  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. James K. Patterson papers Agricultural Papers and Pamphlets text Agricultural Papers and Pamphlets 2024 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7ghx15n565/data/0000ua001/Box_12/Folder_1/Multipage10795.pdf 1890-1919 1919 1890-1919 section false xt7ghx15n565_116 xt7ghx15n565  

 

U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,
OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS.

A. (‘. TRUE, DIRECTOR.

Genertl Drift of Educalmn at the land-Grant Colleges.

BY

J. K. PATTERSON, PH. D..

I’rr’sirlrnl of Uu’ .IIII‘iI‘IIIIIl/‘II/ 11m] ‘lfl’I‘llil’Il/(‘tll I'll/lq/i’ '57. Jx'fl/Illlr'l‘gl.

[Reprinted from 1110 Proficcdings of the Fourlucmli Aunuztl Convention of UN Association
Hf American Agricultural ('ollogoszuul Experiment Stations. 1'. >1. Dt-pnrtmcut of Agriculture,
Oilicu of Experiment Stutions, Bl:l10tin‘.".l.]

 

 

 

  

     

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  

GENERAL DRIFT OF EDUCATION AT THE LAND-GRANT COLLEGES.

By J. K. PATTERSON.

The law of Congress approved July 2, 1862, which made provision for the estab-
lishment, endowment, and maintenance of agricultural and mechanical colleges, set
forth in section -l of the act that “The leading object shall be, without excluding
other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such
branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic acts, in such
manner as the legislatures of the States may respectively prescribe, in order to pro-
mote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pur—
suits and professions in life.”

In this section certain lines of work are made obligatory, viz, “military tactics,”
those branches of learning “related to agriculture,” and those branches of learning
“related to mechanic arts.” Of these three it may be conceded that, while all are
obligatory, “agriculture and the mechanic arts ” are relatively of primary importance
and “military tactics” of secondary importance. There are certain other lines of
work which are permissive, viz, “the scientific and classical studies.” It is, I believe,
a fair interpretation of the two groups that the obligatory is considered the more
important and the permissive the less important, so far as the purposes of the act are
concerned. The intent is set forth in the concluding lilies of the section, viz, “to
promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several
pursuits and professions in life.”

It will be observed that it is within the exclusive competency of the legislatures of
the respective States to determine whether the colleges established under the act
shall be limited and bounded by the obligatory features of the act or whether they
shall, in the exercise of a wise liberality, make provision for the inclusion of “ other
scientific and classical studies;” also, if they adopt the latter alternative, then the
institutions founded under the act make their instruction liberal-as well as practical.

It may not be inappropriate to consider for a few minutes how far the intentions
of the founder have been realized.

Many of the institutions founded under the act have large incomes, accruing partly
from the interest on the proceeds of the land grant, partly from liberal appropria-
tions from the respective States. In some instances State aid surpasses the income
from the legislation of Congress.

In a meeting in Washington in 1885, when I expressed the conviction that com-
pliance in good faith with the organic law required daily instruction in military
science and daily drill I was met with a storm of dissent from every quarter of the
house. The idea of daily military drill and instruction was scouted and ridiculed.
After a few years military instruction grew somewhat. more in favor. Some colleges
had military instruction twice each week; some three times; some every day. The
college which I represent has maintained the principle of daily drills and military
instruction, and has required every man during his college connection to do military
servrce.

The good results of military instruction in the land-grant colleges were apparent
during the war with Spain and the military operations subsequently in the Philip-
pines. Every State in the Union was able through its agricultural and mechanical
college to provide the necessary number of officers for the contingent which it fur-
99

  

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nished for the increase of the Army, many of them quite as well educated and quite
as capable as graduates of West Point. The wisdom of Senator Merrill’s forecast was
thus justified by results.

Irrespective of providing an educated military reserve, I believe that military
instruction in these colleges is a good thing in itself and in its relations. It is a valu-
able element in physical training; it inculcates promptitudc and exactness, pro-
motes grace and dignity of movement, and, above all, enjoins and compels obedience
and submission to wholesome discipline and restraint—one of the most important
lessons to be learned in any country and especially in our own, where the coordinate
ideas of liberty and authority are but imperfectly understood. For these reasons,
but briefly expressed, I believe that every land—grant college in America ought to
make the military feature of coordinate obligation in dignity, and should endeavor
to make the military instruction as thorough and comprehensive as the act of 1862
intended that it should be.

“hen the statute of 1862 was passed the country was in the throes of a great
national crisis. Military considerations were paramount. There was abundance of
material out of which to make soldiers, but the material when listed, or later on
drafted into the service, was raw and undisciplined. The ofiicers elected by the regi-
ments and subsequently confirmed by the States and by the \Var Department were
as little fitted for command as the men whom they were appointed to lead. The
majority of them knew nothing about the requirements for a good soldier; they
could not drill the men; they could not instruct them in tactics; they knew nothing
about strategy. Senator Morrill saw the necessity of providing officers, and that too
out of all proportion to the ability of the Military Academy to supply. Officers who
would be thoroughly drilled and able to command on the field; officers who should
be well versed in the modern science of warfare. The thought suggested to him the
propriety of making the colleges founded under the act military schools, schools for
making soldiers as well as schools for scientific agriculturists and scientific mechani-
cians. The country could not afford to keep a standing army of half a million men
with the proper complement of officers under arms, but it could afford at inconsid-
erable expense to provide for the military instruction of all who matriculate in these
colleges and thus have thousands and tens of thousands of men ready at the call to
arms and capable of shaping into companies, and regiments, and brigades, and divi-
sions, and corps, and armies the volunteers and conscripts of future days. Thus the
military feature was engrafted on the land—grant colleges and made a coordinate and
obligatory feature of their organization. But a. reaction set in after the close of the
war. Men were wearied with civil strife. After four years of continuous warfare
they were ready to sheath their swords and devote themselves to the ways and arts
of peace.

The military feature of these colleges became generally unpopular and the amount
of military instruction was reduced to a minimum, if not eliminated altogether.
Between 1885 and 1897 there was a gradual revival of interest in military matters in
these colleges. The \Var Department held out prospects for promotion to students
who had graduated with honor in military science and the governing boards of the
colleges and universities gradually becan’ie conscious of their duty under the law.
The consequence of this awakening.r was that when the Spanish American war came
on hundreds of educated men, well drilled in the manual of arms, familiar with tac-
tics and strategy, were available for officers, not only in the volunteer, but in not a
few instances for the Regular Army. In discipline, in aptitude, in knowledge of
military science, in all that goes to make an able, intelligent, and capable otlicer, the
graduates of laud-grant colleges were able to hold their own with the best “'cst l’oint
men. I say this, and I say it with pride, not to disparage the graduates of the Mili-
tary Academy, but in justice to our own men.

It may be well in this connection to say that by judicious and cooperative effort
there is a strong probability that an appropriation can be had from the Government
for establishing.r schools for marine engineeringr in connection with the existing schools
of mechanical and electrical engineering which will enable the land-grant colleges to
educate men for this branch of the naval service and thus to do for the Navy what
they are now able to do for the Army.

Of the two objects in the mind of the author of the act of ISGQ—Damely, the scien-
tific development of agriculture and the application of science to the mechanic arts
by providing instruction in those branches of learning relating thereto the mechanic
arts ‘ccm, as measured by ultimate results, to attract more students and to graduate
more students in full and relatively complete courses in the ratio of 4 or 5 to 1. In
many of these colleges students in the application of science to agriculture can not be
had for long courses of study. These latter have been abridged from four years, to three,
from three to two, from two to one, from one year to afew months or even weeks. These

 101

truncated courses of study, necessarily meager and partial, supply some practical knowl-
edge, but do little in the way of either scientific instruction or education. I have had
occasion to collect college statistics for other purposes and find that of 20 or 30 repre-
sentative colleges the number of those who completed regular courses of study which
led to the bachelor’s degree in agriculture and in engineering in 1900 were about 126
in the former and 620 in the latter. This seems to show that the trend of education
in the land-grant colleges, so far as the purpose of the founder was concerned, is in
the direction, not of agriculture, but of the mechanic arts. In some of these colleges
the graduates in classics and in other scientific studies outnumber both the one and
the other. This seems to indicate that though agriculture is encouraged by farmer’s
institutes and all the machinery which ingenuity can devise for its upbuilding and
growth, farmer’s do not care to educate their sons in agriculture, or the sons object
to the kind of education specially provided for them. Farmers in most parts of the
country, I think, prefer when they send their sons to college, to educate them for
professional life, i s lawyers, clergyman, physicians, engineers, or anything, indeed,
but farmers. ()11 the other hand merchants, bankers, professional men, gentlemen
of fortune and gentlemen of leisure prefer for the most part a liberal education for
their sons, though many place them in engineering schools.

The aggregate agricultural productions are large, but few farmers are rich. They
are not rich in the sense that merchants and contractors and manufacturers and iron-
masters and railroad magnates are rich. Many of them are, it is true, well off. But
of the thousands of millionaires and multimillionaires in America how many of them
became rich by farming? This I imagine is the main reason why the agricultural
side of the land-grant colleges do not flourish as the mechanic arts and scientific
branches and classical and philosophical subdivisions do. If then I were to sum up
the work of the colleges outside of the experiment stations, I should say that engi-
neering and classical education and philosophical training take the lead, andthat agri-
culture follows, oftentimes with a halting, limping gait and considerably behind. From
many points of view this is to be regretted. I can not but look on the agriculturist
as the mainstay of the country, and that upon his education and intelligence and
patriotism the perpetuity of free institutions depends. An approximately correct
diagnosis may lead to a remedy.

The scientific instruction in these colleges outside of agriculture and the mechanic arts
has had a great and gratifying development. Those sciences which deal with matter
and with life in their broadest extent have been cultivated for their own sake and not
because of their relation to agriculture and the mechanic arts. The boundary lines
between the kl]! )wn and unknown have been pushed back from year to year, enlarging
the domain of realized knowledge to a degree which could not have been anticipated
a generation ago. The far-reaching generalizations of Darwin and the practical dis-
coveries of Pasteur, with their manifold applications in theory and practice, gave a
notable impulse to discovery based upon observation and experiment. In these the
land-grantcollegeshavetakenthelead inAmerica. They have, moreover, been largely
instrumental in stimulating increased attention to natural science in many of the
older institutions of the country. Harvard and Yale and Princeton and Columbia
have f