Amherst; subsequently the trustees of the academy became the trustees of the college. In the meantime the General Court had granted to the academy half a township of land in Maine; the academy, however, continued its corporate existence until 1858, at which time it was changed into a high school.. The college was not opened until 1821 and received its charter in 1825, although an application for the same had been made in 1823, but had been defeated by various parties.

The institution continued to grow for eleven years, until in 1836 the number of students had reached an aggregate of 259; then came a decline, and nine years thereafter there were only 118 students.

At this time a great effort was made to raise funds and put the college on a proper footing. The State came to the assistance of the college with an appropriation of twenty-five thousand dollars. Over one hundred thousand dollars were raised during the years 1846-'47. The State has contributed in all the sum of $52,500, or only a third as much as to Williams College. The institution has, however, received generous support from its own alumni and from individual friends.

AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE AT AMHERST.

Under the act of Congress of July 2, 1862, granting public lands to the several States for the support of colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts, the State of Massachusetts received three hundred and sixty thousand acres in land scrip. The proceeds of this gift were divided by acts of the Legislatures of 1861 and 1863, respectively, between the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Boston and the Massachusetts Agricultural College at Amherst; two-thirds of the endowment was devoted to the college and one-third to the institute.

Scientific education, previous to this date, had received some attention, but its support had hitherto been derived from private donations, with the exception that the State had granted one hundred thousand dollars toward the building of the Museum of Comparative Zoology.

The Massachusetts School of Agriculture was incorporated in 1856, six years before the appropriation by the General Government. The subject at this time was receiving attention in the foremost States of the Union, and was agitated by the General Government itself. But it was difficult at this time to inaugurate the new movement. For lack of means to carry on the enterprise the school was not established, and the charter was transferred in 1860 to several enterprising citizens of Springfield. After consultation with the leading agriculturists of the western part of the State, it was determined to open the college in that city, and to raise seventy-five thousand dollars for its support.

At the breaking out of the War operations were suspended, until the year 1863, when the Legislature took the affair in hand.

By an act of the Legislature approved April 23, 1863, the Agricultural College was established, and the following named persons were

1Rep. Com. Educ., 1868, 249.

designated trustees of the institution: the Governor of the Commonwealth, the Secretary of the State Board of Education, the secretary of the board of agriculture, and the president of the faculty; these were to be ex officio members of the corporation, and there were also fourteen other citizens named in the act. The trustees were to assume direct control in the organization and government of the college, subject to the approval of the Legislature.

In stating the design of the college the words of the act of Congress in the gift were quoted, viz: "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 arts, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life."

The college was to be located at Amherst, provided that the town would subscribe the required amount, namely, seventy-five thousand dollars. Amherst having complied with the law in this respect, the college was duly located there in 1864. Building was at once begun, and the institution was opened for students in October, 1867. A beautiful site had been chosen, and a farm of three hundred and eighty-one acres purchased for experimental purposes.

Contrary to the design of the act, the sum of forty-one thousand dollars was ordered by the Legislature (April 11, 1864) to be paid for the farm out of the proceeds of the land scrip fund. This was to have been kept as a productive fund by the right interpretation of the act of Congress.

The Legislature began its assistance by an act of 1864, which voted ten thousand dollars for founding purposes. Including this and later grants the list of appropriations by the State is as follows:

In 1883 the Legislature passed an act granting ten thousand dollars annually for the support of the Agricultural College. The total amount of State appropriations up to 1888 is $569,575.

In addition to the above is to be noted the sum of $75,000, subscribed by the town of Amherst.

The value of the property of the college in 1887 was $269,643.42. The entire productive fund of the United States grant is $219,000, and of the State grant is $141,575.35, or a total of $360,575.35, two-thirds

1U. S. Statutes at Large, XII, 503. Rep. Com. Educ., 1868, 133.

of the income of which goes to the college, and one-third to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The income for the college from this source in 1887 was $9,835.35. There are various other funds, mostly scholarships, amounting to the sum of $20,605.19.1

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY.

As early as 1858–59 liberal minded gentlemen were considering the question of establishing in Massachusetts an institute of technology in connection with the Museum of Natural History. After repeated attempts of the associated institutions of Natural History Society, Horticultural Society, Society of Arts and Sciences, and others, a report was prepared by Professor William Rogers setting forth the objects and plans of an institute of technology. The report was accepted in 1860 by the committee of the associated institutions and furnished the framework on which the present institute has been built.

There was a preliminary and informal organization in January, 1861, and an application was made to the Legislature for a charter and a grant of land.

After this there were large private donations and contributions by legacies amounting to about three hundred and seventy thousand dollars. In 1863 the Legislature appropriated three-tenths of the proceeds of the national land grant of 1862.

The following statement of the relations of the institute to the State has been furnished by good authority:

"By an act of 1887 the Legislature of Massachusetts offered us $100,000 on condition of founding twenty free scholarships. We declined the offer, on the ground that twenty free scholarships meant to us a loss of $4,000 income, and that we could not rely upon getting much more than this sum annually out of the $100,000. We were not willing to be represented as having received a large gift from the State when in reality, the proposed grant would bring us no financial relief or strength, since we can have all the pupils at $200 a year whom we are able to provide for.

"Upon this, the Legislature the next year made a clear grant of $100,000 upon condition of our accepting the grant of the year before on the terms stated. This we did, and all but $50,000 of the money has been paid over to us, and the twenty free scholarships have been established. Now, upon this showing, some people would say that the State had given us $200,000. We prefer to say that the State has given us $100,000, and has bought $100,000 worth of tuition from us, for the benefit of deserving young men, citizens of the commonwealth.

"This is all that Massachusetts has ever given us directly in money; but many years ago, complaint having been made that the State had sold its United States land scrip at very inadequate prices, the com

1Report of Trustees, 1888, 24.

monwealth added a sum, which I recall at about $141,000, to the capital of the fund derived from the foregoing source. Of the income of this fund the Institute of Technology regularly receives one-third, so that, again, one might say that the State had in this instance given to the school a little less than $50,000. Inasmuch, however, as the State has never made the money over to us, and as the State might possibly refuse to continue the appropriation under which the income is paid to us, the question just how the matter shall be stated becomes. a difficult one.

"This is all which Massachusetts has given us in money, upon any construction of the statutes. In addition, we have derived from the State the benefit of a right of perpetual occupancy of the land on which our buildings stand, subject to the condition that we shall never build over more than one-third the ground. It is difficult to say just what this privilege was worth at the time it was conferred upon us. At the time the grant was made the State was selling the land next to us (slightly to be preferred, by reason of being nearer the public garden) at a rate which would have made the fee of our tract worth about $120,000. But we did not get the fee, and our easement was qualified, as I have told you. The grant was also accompanied by the condition that if when all the lands surrounding us had been sold it should not be made to appear to the satisfaction of commissioners to be for the purpose appointed by the Governor, that the price of such surrounding lands had been raised sufficiently above their then ap praised value (at which value the State was earnestly desirous of selling as rapidly as possible) to make the treasury good for not selling our tract, then, in that case, the Institute of Technology should be required to pay for the land. This we have never been called upon to do, and I therefore conclude that the grant made to us by the State in the foregoing instance cost the treasury nothing, but was in fact only a part of the general scheme of advertisement by which the State undertook to promote the sale and settlement of the Back Bay lands, which were then, and for a long time thereafter, vastly in excess of the demand.

WORCESTER FREE INSTITUTE.

Worcester Institute was founded in 1865 through private beneficence for the purpose of training boys in the mechanical arts. The State then gave fifty thousand dollars to augment the endowment. Though the institute may not be termed a school of higher learning in the philosophic sense of the term, yet it gives theoretical and practical courses in mechanical and civil engineering, chemistry, physics, modern languages, etc. It deserves to be mentioned among the worthy State institutes of Massachusetts.

Massachusetts has thus shown herself ever ready to aid all of her educational enterprises, and they have been at once the glory and the support of the State. By wise laws, by land grants, by taxation, by

gifts, and by every means at her command, the work of education has been supported. In accordance with the generous sentiments expressed in the Constitution and otherwise, the statutes provide, "That the personal property of literary, benevolent, charitable, and scientific institutions incorporated within the Commonwealth, and the real estate belonging to such institutions and occupied by them or their officers, for which they were incorporated," are exempt from taxation.

The history of early education in Connecticut presents the same selfsacrifice and devotion to the cause of learning that characterized the people of Massachusetts Bay. An historic branch of this colony, Connecticut followed the same general.plan of education in providing for the system of local town schools and academies, and in supporting the college at Cambridge. But we find, after the founding of Yale in 1700, that while the system of local schools was continued with little change the greater part of the private and all of the public support was withdrawn from Harvard and given to the home school, which was finally located at New Haven. The Court of Connecticut pursued the same policy with regard to the support of Yale College that Massachusetts had previously followed in relation to Harvard, viz, by aiding the enter prise by means of grants of land and money, by protecting the property and making it exempt from taxation, and by favoring those engaged in the educational work.

Although the government of the college was under the immediate control of the General Assembly, whose members appointed the board of trustees, yet the Assembly or Court considered Yale a subject of legis lation, and if not an organic part of the system of State, yet as an institution essential to the welfare of all, and one which they were in duty bound to support.

"The essential feature of this legislation as well of the whole history of our schools and colleges shows that the fathers of this colony recognized the paramount duty of aiding the work of education. They came

1 Revised Statutes, Chap. II, sec. 5, Title III.