Page:Kansas A Cyclopedia of State History vol 1.djvu/35

 agriculture; the students were moved from the old farm to the new one; workshops in iron and wood, a sewing room, printing office, telegraph office and kitchen laboratory were equipped that industrial training might be given; and fifty minutes of manual training per day became compulsory for each student. After Mr. Anderson had been president three years Latin, French, German were discontinued; the preparatory course was abolished, thus shortening the whole course from six to four years; the grade of work was adjusted and lowered to connect with that done by the public schools.

In 1875 the Mechanics' Hall was erected; in 1876 Horticultural Hall and the Chemical Laboratory; in 1877 the main part of the present barn was constructed (it was finished in 1886); and in 1879 the main hall, named in honor of Mr. Anderson, was built.

In 1878 Mr. Anderson resigned, and from Feb. to Dec., 1879, M. L. Ward was acting president of the college. Shortage of money made it a difficult year. The legislature of 1877 having voted “that not over $15,000 of the interest on the endowment fund shall be used to pay instructors and teachers in said college until debts of said college be paid in full, and until said college shall refund to state all moneys advanced by the state to pay for instructors and running expenses of said college.” The debt had been decreased during President Anderson's administration but was not cleared until the state legislature passed an act liquidating it.

George Thompson Fairchild, who succeeded Mr. Anderson, entered upon his duties as president of the college in Dec., 1879. He had been an instructor in the Michigan Agricultural College, so came well prepared to improve the college at Manhattan. He believed in a school that would combine the culture of a classical education with the usefulness of manual training. He rearranged the course of study to combine theory and practice, added literature, psychology, etc., divided the school year into three terms, inaugurated a series of lectures, and appointed committees to take charge of the various branches of school life.

In 1890 the Federal government passed an act for the further endowment of agricultural colleges established under the provisions of an act of 1862. The act provided, “the sum of $15,000 for the year ending June 30, 1890, and an annual increase of the amount of such appropriation thereafter for ten years by an additional sum of $1,000 over the preceding year, and the average amount to be paid thereafter to each state and territory shall be $25,000, to be applied only to instruction in agriculture, the mechanic arts, the English language, and the various branches of mathematics, physical, natural and economic science, with special reference to the industries of life and to the facilities for such instruction.”

In 1907 the income of the agricultural college was further increased by what is known as the Nelson amendment to the agricultural appropriation bill. “In accordance with the act of Congress approved July 2, 1862, and the act of Congress approved Aug. 30, 1890, the sum of $5,000, in addition to the sums named in said act, for the fiscal year ending