entirely different; and it was perfectly plain, or should have been, that colleges of the kind already existing, which only the comparatively wealthy were able to attend, would not answer the purpose. Plainly, it would be of no use whatever to establish colleges for the industrial classes which they could not attend. Evidently, the necessities of the industrial classes and the conditions under which they could attend, were to be, at least should have been, the first subject of consideration on the part of those who were to establish the colleges. Unfortunately, however, this seems not to have been the case. The colleges established were in the main, so far as facility of attendance was concerned, on a precise parallel with those already existing for the non-industrial classes, whose opportunities were thus largely increased. And so it has come about that millions of the people's money devoted by act of Congress for the express purpose of the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes, have been so appropriated and applied that they could receive no benefit from the appropriation; and the comparatively well-to-do, non-industrial classes have. entered into the inheritance from which they were excluded.

HOW THE MISTAKE WAS MADE.

But it behooves us to inquire whether this state of things has come about of necessity, as an inevitable result of the circumstances of the case, or whether it is somebody's fault. For they that have done this deed are honorable, and will, perhaps, with

reason answer you.

Now, as above intimated, it was, or should have been, obvious from the first that, in order to give college privileges to students from the industrial classes, some special provision would be necessary; and, also, that cheap tuition, even free tuition, would not answer the purpose. The expense of $100 a year would as effectually debar the student as an expense of $1,000 a year if he could not get the money. And how many young men from the industrial classes proper could furnish even $100 a year, which is, by the way, much less than the amount required, in the most inexpensive colleges, for four continuous years at the age when young men seek education?

The futility of manual labor schemes, so called, had already been proved. But one conclusion remained. There was and

there is absolutely but one way to place the education intended by the grant within reach of the industrial classes of the country. That is, by allowing them the opportunity of earning during one portion of the year what they will need to spend at college during the other portion. This plan is also indicated by the order of the seasons, and by the fact that three-fourths of the industrial classes, including all the farmers and farm laborers, who are more than half of the whole, are intensely busy during six continuous months of the year, while they are subject to a period of almost enforced leisure during the other six months. For example, the farmer who has four sons, will need to keep every one of them busy on the farm in this latitude from May to November, while from November to May he can spare three of them as well as not, and without seriously diminishing the income of his business.

This leisure period is then, very clearly, the time that some of them should be at college, and the only time when they can be. The same may be said of another large contingent of the industrial classes; to wit, the masons, carpenters, bricklayers, brickmakers, painters, and all whose occupations are active and pressing in summer, but scarcely remunerative at all in winter. These considerations point inevitably to the conclusion that, whatever is done at the colleges in the summer, there should at least be a six months' term for the industrial classes during the winter, especially when we consider the further fact that such an arrangement would be as good as any other for those of the industrial classes whose industries are uniform throughout the year, and that a capable young man, either on the farm or in the workshop, could, if this opportunity were allowed him, earn enough during the summer to support him at college during the winter. I may add that the effectiveness of this plan had already been proved in the common schools and academies of New England.

Now how did it happen that these obvious and all-important considerations, which would seem to include the sine qua non of collegiate education for the industrial classes, were either carelessly overlooked or of deliberate purpose disregarded?

In order to an intelligent answer to this question, it will be necessary to revert briefly to the history and development of collegiate education in this country.

THE METHOD AND PURPOSE OF THE DENOMINATIONAL COLLEGES.

It is well known that previous to the Land Grant of 1862 nearly all our colleges were denominational institutions, established primarily for the purpose of educating men for the ministry and other learned professions. It is important to observe in this connection that they were not intended for the education of the industrial classes, who were to remain industrial, but precisely the reverse. A boy was taken from the farm or workshop, where he was working and learning to work, to become a minister or lawyer or doctor. His industrial life was at once broken in upon; and he was expected to work no more with his hands, however busy he might be in his non-industrial occupation, so that he was educated not in or for, but out of, the industrial classes.

Now we have no criticism to make on the methods of these colleges. They were good, perhaps the best, for the purpose for which they were intended. Also, the money which endowed these colleges was not taken from the public funds, but was contributed by individuals, and raised by the denominations which controlled them; and no one has a right to find fault with them for accomplishing their own ends with their own money in their own way. But, when money in large amount is devoted from the public treasury for the express purpose of educating the industrial classes, the case is decidedly different. We have then a right to inquire who has taken this money, and what they have done with it, and whether it is answering the purpose for which it was designed, and, if not, why not. The people of this country have a very large interest in these questions, for millions and millions of their money have gone in this way for these purposes.

THE REMARKABLE PRIVILEGES OF COLLEGE PROFESSORS.

But, in order to an intelligible solution of the questions here proposed, it will first be necessary to consider the situation of the professors in our American colleges, keeping in mind also the comparative condition of the industrial classes for whose benefit the professors in the Land Grant colleges are supposed to be laboring.

The teachers in our public schools are at work from five to six hours a day, for five days a week, most of which time they are en

gaged in hearing recitations and drilling their classes. The laborers in farm or factory work not less than ten hours a day and six days a week, so that the teacher works on the average half as long as the farm or factory employee, and gets on the average twice as much money. The advantage of the teacher therefore over those engaged in industrial pursuits, as regards hours of work and payment received, is as four to one. This is as much as the industrial classes, who may perhaps, be regarded as the employers in this case, think to be reasonable. But the average professor in American colleges has generally only three recitations, of an hour each in a day, perhaps more generally, only two; and he also works only five days a week. That is to say, supposing him to be thoroughly equipped, so that he needs to spend no time in preparation, or in taking successive classes over the same ground year after year, he is engaged in his proper labor during the whole week just about as many hours as the laboring man works in a single day. But this is not all his advantage. He works less than two hundred of the more than three hundred days which make up the year for the properly industrial classes. The business man and his employees generally contrive to get two to four weeks for vacation; lawyers and ministers, generally about the same, the latter sometimes a little more. But the college professor has three solid months in the year, every year, for vacations; while his Saturday holidays and other incidental holidays make half as much more.

Four months and a half of the twelve for vacations and holidays is surely a liberal allowance; but, if we include Sundays, he has nearly six months of the twelve. In other words, while the industrial classes have one day in seven for rest and recreation, the college professor has about one day in two, not to speak of the very remarkable difference between a day's work of ten hours in the one case and three in the other.

Now, in view of these facts, must we not regard the position of a college professor as about the softest and most desirable that a worthy candidate for place and honors can aspire to? Even the appointees to government offices, who, since the days of Andrew Jackson, are understood to be enjoying the spoils of political victory, are not so well fixed; for their tenure of office is generally brief, while the professor is understood to be in for life.

Now, as above intimated, this may be perfectly proper for professors in the denominational colleges. It is well enough that they should have abundant leisure, and be largely free from the ordinary

anxieties of life. Some of them are pursuing original investigations and writing books, by which to increase their own fame and the sum of human knowledge. Besides, they are not working for the industrial classes, but, rather, for those who have time and means at their command, who desire leisure on their own account, and who are not obliged to keep to any strict rule of economy, either of time or means. But to impose such a rule of extravagant wastefulness on the hard-working industrial classes, who do not get as much for ten hours' labor as the professor gets for one, nor half as much; to say to them virtually, You may come to college when it is pleasant and agreeable for us to attend to you, and if you cannot come then, you need not come at all,- who will say that such a régime is either wise or just? Who would not rather say that the man who, with his eyes open, would organize a college on this basis out of the public funds, the people's money, set apart expressly for the better education of the industrial classes, who would not rather say that such a man would deserve a cell in the State's prison or a lunatic asylum?

THE TEMPTATION TO PERVERSION OF THE LAND GRANT FUNDS.

Well, perhaps it would not be prudent at present to say either the one thing or the other. But a consideration of some of the attendant circumstances is certainly necessary to an understanding of the way in which the Land Grant funds were so generally perverted from their original purpose. For prominent among these was doubtless the desirableness of positions corresponding to those of the professors in the denominational colleges. Light labor, abundant leisure, secure position, comfortable salary, long vacations, honorable titles, aggregate a powerful temptation to those for whom such positions are within reach or reasonable hope.

When, therefore, it became known that something like thirty new colleges were to be established, giving opportunity for hundreds of new professors, there was naturally an eager interest among aspirants for professorial honors, especially when it was learned that the colleges were to be of a class which would probably not require very high attainment, and that the appointments were likely to be made largely through political influence in the State legislatures. Is it any wonder that under these circum