Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1900 [PAGE 126]

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106

UNIVERSITY O F I L L I N O I S .

[June

13,.

We beg leave to submit a few statistics of the Agricultural College of the Ohio University, prepared by the dean of the department, Professor Hunt, as a refutation, so far as that college is concerned, of the statement that universities are educating men away from the farm or farming interests. " Since January, 1892. 453 students have been connected with the College of Agriculture and Domestic Science. Of the number 149 are still students, fourteen of them being in other courses or colleges. There are 106 ex-students of whom we have no present knowledge. This leaves us 200 ex-students of whom we have definite information. There are 80 farmers, 40 butter and cheese makers, 28 are farm foremen or farm employes of more less responsibility,, while 10 are teachers in agricultural colleges. Seven young men were in the Spanish-American war, while eleven of the 200 ex-students are young women who have been pursuing the course in domestic science recently established. One has become a lawyer, one a physician, and one is a member of an agricultural newspaper firm. There are two druggists, and two veterinarians. Two have died, six are clerks and six are in miscellaneous occupations. "Of the 106 not heard from many were students a portion of one year only. There is fully as much reason to suppose that they have returned to the farmas that they are anywhere else. 44 Of the 300 who have apparently ended their college days, 29, or about ten per cent, (not including the present senior class), have graduated in the four year courses of Agriculture or Horticulture and Forestry. Of these eleven have become farmers or gardeners, seven are teachers in agricultural colleges, two are farming for others, two are preparing to be physicians, two are clerks, one is curator of the Archeological Museum, one is a creamery operator; one a post-graduate student; one was in the recent war and the occupation of one is unknown." These figures are presented with the hope that the Board may not find then* tedious. It is a matter of doubt whether any other technical or professional eoursecan show a higher proportion of graduates following the calling for which they were educated. In view of all these facts and the information gained your Committee begs to recommend that the faculty and instruction force of the College of Agriculture be increased as soon as may be deemed expedient. The Committee recognizes through its recent experience that both instruction and investigation in agriculture in its various branches require an equipment which is expensive to maintain, while there is also the fact to be considered that the function of the Experiment Station is purely that of original! scientific research. We would therefore recommend as a fixed policy of the University that the expense of the equipment provided for purposes of instruction be met from the fund of the College of Agriculture only; further, that the equipment required for the Experiment Station be maintained from the funds of the Station only. But that where the same equipment may serve for both purposes the expense may be divided pro rata. With this recognition of conditions the Committee would suggest that the^ Dean of the College and the Director of the Station be instructed to observe such care in estimating expenses for maintenance and equipment that such* division shall always bear only its due proportion. As all receipts of the Experiment Station are credited to the Station fundi we would recommend that all receipts from sale of farm and other productsunder the management of the College of Agriculture shall be credited to the fund of that College, to be hereafter known as the agricultural fund, and that the dairy herd and appliances be transferred, without cost, to the College of Agriculture. In view of the recently enacted law, which specifically declares that not less than one-half of the revenues from the so-called Land Grant Act, approved July 2, 1862; and not less than one-half of the proceeds of the so-called "Second Morrill Bill," approved August 30, 1890, shall be applied by the Trustees of the University of Illinois solely to instruction in the State Agri-