ENGINEERING EXPERIMENT STATIONS IN THE LAND GRANT COLLEGES
On July 2, 1862, President Lincoln approved the act establishing the Land Grant Colleges of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts, and on March 3, 1863, he approved the act incorporating the National Academy of Sciences. When the nation was stricken down with civil war it sought relief in science, on the one hand, establishing institutions for the scientifie education of all the people in the arts of peace, on the other hand, recognizing exceptional merit in science and making the most distinguished men of the country the advisers of the government.
Now when the world is again infected by war more terrible than can be imagined in this one great nation which has escaped, we are naturally driven to think of "preparedness," and it will be well if this movement can be directed to making the nation strong through education and scientific research. At least three bills are before the Congress which are more important for the welfare of the country and its defense from foreign aggression, should that ever become necessary, than any enlargement of the army and navy. These bills would establish a national university, extend secondary education in industry and agriculture, and establish research stations for engineering at the colleges of agriculture and mechanic arts.
A national university at Washington, holding the same position toward the state and privately endowed universities as these hold or should hold to the colleges and schools of each state, would correspond with the establishment of the National Academy of Sciences during the civil war, but could be made far more effective in its influence on research and on the efficient conduct of the departments of the government.
The Smith-Hughes bill provides for the promotion of the vocational education of boys and girls of high-school age through cooperation of the nation and the states. There is appropriated for the first year $1,700,000 with an increment each year for eight years on condition that each cooperating state shall appropriate an equal sum. In the first year the sum of $200,000 is for administration and investigation, $500,000 for training teachers for vocational work, and $1,000,000 for payment of teachers, equally divided between agriculture, on the one side, and trade, home economics and industry, on the other.
Of special interest to scientific men is the Newlands bill establishing research stations in engineering, corresponding to the existing agricultural stations in the colleges of agriculture and the mechanic arts. These land grant colleges and their agricultural research stations have been of incalculable value to education, to agriculture, to the states and to the nation. They have been largely responsible for the establishment and development of the state universities. The land grant colleges and the institutions of which they are a part received in 1914 from the United States $2,500,000; from the states and from other sources over $30,000,000. They have 9,000 instructors and 105,000 students.
By the Hatch act of 1887 and the Adams act of 1906 the sum of $30,000 a year is appropriated for research in agriculture in the experiment stations. The colleges have more students of mechanic arts than of agriculture, but there is no similar provision for re-
