Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1871 [PAGE 278]

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270 crop and is raised very little. Each one must conduct experiments suited to his latitude and people. I would remark that in Minnesota we recognize the fact that this grant of land for these schools was not given exclusively for agriculture, but the agricultural and mechanical arts and all industrial professions. Our University is located at what is to be very soon a great manufacturing center. There is water power enough running to waste to supply all the cotton mills in the country, and they are beginning to avail themselves of it. For that reason we shall be obliged to develop our department of mechanical arts somewhat in advance of the agricultural, We have in Minnesota sixty thousand square miles of as good land as there is out of doors, which needs no manure for years, and there is not that need of scientific farming in Minnesota for cropraising that exists in many other localities. I will allude to the military matter. When I went there two years ago, I found holding the position of Professor of Military Science, a retired officer who had been a Major-General of the volunteers. H e remained with us but a year, and then left to go into some business, but during that period he conducted the military matter quite vigorously. He was a popular and successful instructor. Since then nothing has been done, and whether we do anything further will depend upon whether we can get a successful instructor. I cannot give the time to it myself to conduct the exercises, and we have no one else to do it. The practical proposition is this : That we bring the matter forward in a proper way, and ask Congress to legislate that the military exercises shall not be obligatory except when the Secretary of War shall detail an officer to give the instruction. When this is done X think we ought to be obliged to give the instruction; otherwise to do it or not, as we please. I have no doubt the intention of Congress was to make the military exercises obligatory, and I am fully disposed to comply with the letter and the spirit of the law. What we ought to do depends on what we can do, and that is what we shall do in Minnesota if we get an officer that will carry it out; if not we shall wait awhile. I want to make one remark on the matter of secondary education I think this is the great want of the country just now, and we are doing in Minnesota what we hope will stimulate the development of the secondary schools. I think we make a mistake in organizing the agricultural colleges as academic institutions with a little seasoning of technical studies. I do not believe in inviting our farmers to re_ ceive a farmer's education as such. The farmer, if he is to be educated,