Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1900 [PAGE 125]

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1899.]

PROCEEDINGS OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES

105

State, some $1,500 only of this being received from the Hatch fund, the remainder of the fund going to the Station at Cornell. This $1,500 is given to secure the franking privilege for the Station. Six or seven graduates of the Michigan school fill honorable positions here. At Cornell the agricultural department has an income of over $80,000, $13,000 is the United States Experiment Station fund, $25,000 from the Second Morrill Act fund and a special State appropriation of $35,000; $10,000 is given from the general fund, allowed for barns, farm, repairs, and the salaries of the dairy school. About $7,000 of this is turned back as profit from sales. They have a four and two years' course, a post-graduate and a short course. There are this year, nearly two hundred in all, a tenth of the whole number of the students at Cornell. There are 40 taking the four years, 45 the two years' course, 90 in the short course, 50 of these in the.diary, 40 in the general short course. These are about all they can manage and they are not asking for students. The short course is eleven weeks, without entrance examition. Those special students must be over 17 years of age, 16 years being required for the four years' course. The most remarkable work done at Cornell through the College of Agriculture is a sort of University Extension System with all the farmers of the State as students, beginning with the children in nature study clubs. These latter now number over forty thousand children, mainly in the 5th, 6th, and 7th grades. The Agricultural Department at Cornell has a remarkable group of men, working together most harmoniously, each man given his chance to do his best and all additions to faculty or instructors made through combined efforts and consultation for the good of the whole. The amount of land used is comparatively small; the grade of the students ranks with that of other departments and ten per cent, of the whole student body is considered a fair proportion. Practically the entire farming community of the State are their students. Here we find the faculty strengthened by several graduates of the Michigan School, one or two of these being men who would be eminent anywhere. At the University of Ohio in Columbus, this department is called the College of Agriculture and Domestic Science. It offers a four and a two years' course. Applicants for the short course must be fifteen, and unless over twenty-one must pass an examination or bring high school certificates. Applicants over twenty-one enter without examination. Practically many of the two year men pursue the four years' course, and few leave before studying three years. This year there are 164 students in all; 53 in the four years' , course, 19 in the Dairy and 39 in the Domestic Science course. The entire student body at Columbus is 1,147. The increase is rapid in the four years' course. The University stands in the midst of 365 acres of cultivated land, tilled under the direction of the College of Agriculture. The college pays over $4,000 for student labor and asks nothing for this purpose of the State. Crops are sold and students work a certain number of hours. We were assured that these men rank in scholarship as high and often higher than in any other department. Professor Hunt took great pride in presenting a large number of these students to the committee. Many of them are paying their wav. They have a system of free scholarships; open to men and women, for the two years' course. These scholarships are good for one year of the four years' course should the student go into it.. The first year is practically a high school course. These students are appointed by the Board of Directors of the County Agricultural Societies. All fees, including laboratory fees, are remitted. ' •' * No Experiment Station is connected with this institution.