Page:Kansas A Cyclopedia of State History vol 1.djvu/34

 scrip. The city of Manhattan, fearing the agricultural college would be consolidated with the university at Lawrence, gave $12,000 (the result of a bond election) toward the purchase.

MAIN BUILDING. AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE.

An act of legislation in 1873, reorganizing the state institutions, resulted in the appointment of a new board of regents. It elected Rev. John A. Anderson of Junction City to the place vacated by President Denison, who resigned the same year. Mr. Anderson changed the policy of the college immediately. Through him and the board who supported him, the Kansas State Agricultural College started on the mission it was intended to fulfill. Mr. Anderson believed in industrial education, and the reasons for his radical policies were published in 1874 in a “Hand Book of the Kansas State Agricultural College.” Briefly told he thought prominence should be given to a study in proportion to the actual benefit expected to be derived from it; that, “The farmer and mechanic should be as completely educated as the lawyer or minister; but the information that is essential to one is often comparatively useless to the other and it is therefore unjust to compel all classes to pursue the same course of study.” That ninety-seven per cent of Kansas people are in industrial vocations, so greater prominence should be given industrial studies. That each year's course of study should be, as far as possible, complete in itself because many students are unable to take a whole college course. Mr. Anderson's views were unpopular but they met the approval of the board of regents to such an extent that they discontinued the department of literature and organized those of mechanic arts and