Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/188

176 McCosh, President of Princeton College. In that paper, the whole national and State policy regarding scientific and industrial education was condemned. The decision arrived at by two different Congresses of the United States, and by nearly thirty State Legislatures, the plan adopted by nearly thirty Boards of Trustees and Faculties in the various States—many of them after careful study of institutions at home and abroad—were dismissed with contempt. The main argument was, so far as argument can be detected among the multitude of assertions, that Scotland, from which the doctor had not long before emigrated, had got along well enough without any provision for agricultural instruction.

Never was there a more admirable illustration of the thoughts put forth by James Russell Lowell, on "a certain condescension in foreigners." To two institutions the doctor paid his respects by name, one being Rutgers College, in New Jersey; the other Cornell University. The first of these, Rutgers College, it would appear had committed an unpardonable sin. While the doctor's learned predecessors, at Princeton, had been preaching against "science falsely so called," the Rutgers College authorities had received that portion of the college land-grant fund which came to New Jersey, and had established an admirable school for applied science. This it was, doubtless, which led the doctor, in the heart of this State of ours which glories in its descent from the men who founded the Dutch Republic, to stigmatize his sister institution in New Jersey as "managed by a pack of Dutchmen."

His reference to the Cornell University was of another character, and not all my respect for the doctor's ability as a metaphysician will allow me here to suppress the fact that his whole argument was based upon one of the most astounding misrepresentations ever attempted upon an American audience.

This misrepresentation was in regard to the law of Congress of 1862. Throughout the doctor's address the idea is conveyed that the law of 1862 contemplated solely the establishment of exclusively agricultural colleges.

Nothing could be more wide of the fact. Had the doctor ever read that law he would have seen that, while "subjects relating to agriculture and the mechanic arts" were named as "leading branches," it was expressly declared in the act that other scientific and classical branches should not be excluded. Nay, more, he would have seen that so broad was the intention of Congress that the wording of the act is, that "subjects relating to agriculture and the mechanic arts" shall be taught, thus giving the authorities permission to extend their teaching into every field of learning which could strengthen these departments or elevate them.

I am aware that, in opposition to the plain intent of the act of 1862, the doctor may fall back upon its title, in which, for the sake of