Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1871 [PAGE 272]

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decide. I think that is the only test that can be applied to these institutions as to what sort of men they will train up. When we have young men who have been that length of time in service, the world will know what they are. At the Sheffield School, the character of the young men sent out is the best advertisement we have. A gentleman came from one of the neighboring towns a few weeks ago, and says. "I have brought my son to the Scientific School because I have seen boys attending the classical and the scientific schools side by side, and that is the reason I bring him here." Others take the opposite course. They may have a strong tendency in the direction of letters. There is our hope : that the results of this training will be good, and such as not only to reward us, but justify the country in these large expenses and very important modifications of the educational system. Perhaps I have talked too long, but there is one further remark. There are some people who do not believe in these movements and sneer at them as the "new education"—that is the phrase used by many, as if that was a novelty. The best way to answer them is to tell them that 300 years ago the phrase, "new education," was used in England and in Germany, to indicate instruction in Greek and Latin, which met with the same opposition that we find now. They said it was heretical, and would take men away from the church ; but in process of time they saw in Greek and Latin there were great elements of culture, and now they have entirely superseded the old metaphysical courses. As the world has grown, science has become a great department of human learning, and there are a multitude of things to be learned they had no suspicion of two or three hundred years ago. President Welch, being called on by the chairman, spoke as follows :

T H E IOWA STATE A G R I C U L T U R A L COLLEGE

Was opened in the spring of 1868. Its income, amounting to $36,000 a year, is derived from the leasing of the lands donated by Congress. The college building, which is 168 feet by 110, was erected by the State, and cost $170,000. The building, which holds 160 students, has been tilled to its utmost from the beginning, and the surrounding country, though sparsely settled, furnishes homes for about fifty more, so that the entire number in attendance is two hundred. The applications for admissions each year have more than doubled the attendance, and if the facilities for board equalled the demand, I judge we should have five hundred instead of two hundred.