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Caption: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1882
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55 WHAT WOBK IS LEGITIMATE TO THE INSTITUTIONS FOUNDED ON THE CONGKESSIONAL GEANT OF 1862. BY SELIM H. PEABODY, Ph.D., LL.D., Regent. [Head at a Convention of Agriculturists, Washington, D.G., January 11th, 1882.] The great exposition in London, in 1851, was the first of those gatherings in which the workmen of the world have competed for supremacy in those arts which mark the development of mankind in the nineteenth century. It proved to be a grand awakening of the thought of the nations, America included, to the fact that those peoples who had most faithfully fostered the . advancement of scientific discovery, with its application to practical arts, were making the most rapid stride in every line of material progress. Especially was it apparent in America that there was an imperative demand for higher technical instruction in every direction of human art, enterprise, and labor; in agriculture, in engineering, in architecture, in mining, and in all departments of manufactures. In a few particulars we had demonstrated the wonderful versatility of the American mind, its ready adaptability to new circumstances amid untried conditions; its fertility of invention; its quickness of acquisition; its grasp and strength, and tireless activity. With this demonstration came also the conviction that the need of the time, the inexorable demand of the nation, was the need and the demand for technical instruction, such as could then be found nowhere on this side of the Atlantic. This leaven was fermenting in every thinking mind. A few schools were in operation. Efforts were everywhere made to open others. There was a school of engineering at Troy. There were scientific departments at Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth. Pennsylvania and Michigan had founded schools of Agriculture. Other schools of applied science were contemplated. There was great difficulty in securing the endowments, without which such enterprises could not thrive. As the want to be supplied was of national extent, as the benefits to be secured were such as would increase the nation's wealth and develop the nation's prosperity, the idea was born—some say in Illinois—to seek aid of the nation at the hands of the Federal Government. During President Buchanan's administration a bill was introduced into Congress by Mr. (now Senator) Morrill, of Vermont, which bill provided that a part of the public domain should be distributed to the several States for the foundation of schools in which technical instruction should be given. The bill was advocated before the House in an able speech by Mr. Morrill; was thoroughly discussed and
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