University of Minnesota

“ The university is one of the largest in the country. In 1907 there were twenty-three buildings valued at more than $1,475,000. The university library of 110,000 volumes is supplemented by the libraries of Minneapolis and St Paul. In 1908–1909 the faculty numbered about 325 and the total enrolment of students was 4421. Other higher educational institutions in Minnesota are Hamline University (Methodist Episcopal) , with a college of liberal arts at St Paul, and a college of medicine at Minneapolis; Macalester College (Presbyterian) at St Paul ”

“ The iron mines of the Mesabi and Vermilion ranges, 50 to 75 miles north of Duluth, produce ore very rich in iron, and belong to an ore field reaching to the Mississippi. There are large quarries of fine building-stone; and at the pipe-stone quarry, near the southwestern corner of the state, the Indians come for the red stone that can easily be carved into pipes.
Education. Minnesota has 8,841 school-houses with 443,445 pupils. The state University of Minnesota in Minneapolis was opened in 1869, and now has 5,369 students and 390 instructors. ”

“ The football team of the University of Minnesota has long held a high position among the other western teams, athletic relations of an intermittent character having been maintained with Illinois, Northwestern, Chicago and Michigan, and a regular series having been played with the University of Wisconsin eleven. ”

“ Land, buildings and equipment, students and teachers in large numbers, the university will surely have. It is now a big university and will become much bigger. Whether it will become one of the great universities of the world will depend on whether it can find great men for its chairs. This is the question before all our universities: it should be the dominant concern of Minnesota at the present time.
SCIENTIFIC ITEMS
Presidents of the national scientific societies have been elected as follows: The American Society of Naturalists, Professor H. S. Jennings, of the Johns Hopkins University ”

“ They saw a thousand miles of railway as good as built, spreading population far and wide and carrying the produce of an empire to waiting markets.
It was a good fortune for the territory that the organic law gave it no power to run in debt. It was equally unfortunate that a corporation created by it could and did run in debt. In the same February of 1851 in which Delegate Sibley secured from Congress the reservation of the two townships of land to endow a university, the Minnesota legislature created the University of Minnesota, to be located at or near St. Anthony’s Falls. ”

“ So that we feel—we of the university feel—that the work of horticulture in this state is distinctly a co-operative undertaking, and that the leadership and enterprise and vision of this society have been the chief things that developed horticulture in Minnesota to the point it has reached. But we do believe that the co-operation of your university is an important and, we hope, from now on will be an increasingly important thing. Certain work is going on constantly at the University in the various departments, and that work is of distinct benefit because you recognize it. ”

“ The reliance of American colleges generally for the preparation of their students had been upon the excellent academies, controlled or countenanced by Christian denominations, which were the ornaments of so many eastern villages. The academy did not multiply nor flourish in the West. Ambitious cities existing on highly colored lithographic maps could tolerate nothing less than a college or university. A score of them were chartered in Minnesota in the fifties. ”

“ A beginning was made under the law in the year of its passage, but owing to an omission in an appropriation bill it was not put into full and effective operation till 1881. The results have fully equaled all reasonable expectations. The university, the high schools, and the common schools of Minnesota have been converted from a loose aggregation into a complete, harmonious, organized system. There is open to every child of the state a course of free school education from the kindergarten to the doctorate of philosophy. ”

“ No man less confident of the righteousness of his cause, nor less willing to fight a bitter opposition, could have built up a school for teachers which has served as model for many others in Minnesota and other states. The second state normal school was opened in Mankato in 1868; the third in St. Cloud in the next year.
The “wing and extension” of the great building planned for the territorial regents of the university in 1856, and built in that year and the next, stood empty for ten years, except that at different times private teachers were allowed to hold their classes in some of the rooms. ”

“ Under the control of the university authorities are also the State Agricultural Experiment Station and the Geological and Natural History Survey. The degrees conferred for graduate work are the master's degree in arts, science, laws, and pharmacy, and the doctor's degree in philosophy, civil law, medicine, and pharmacy. No honorary degrees are conferred. Students are admitted on examination or on certificate from accredited schools of the State. Tuition is free in all departments except law and medicine. ”

“ The extension service of the University is organized to carry the message of better homes, better farms, better social and business relations to the people who need it. Farmers' institutes, short courses, lectures, demonstration, farm supervision, judging at county fairs, boys' and girls' club work, institute trains, county agent service, indicate some of the kinds of work in progress. The press is also a powerful factor in this work. The Minnesota Farmers' Library, which is made up of timely publications on all matters of rural interest, has a mailing list of fifty-five thousand farmers. ”

“ All our State institutions are favorable to coëducation, and give equal privileges to all. The Minnesota University has been open to women since its foundation, and from 1875 to 1885 fifty-six young women were graduated with high honor to themselves and their sex. ”

“ After the midsummer of 1863 matters were looking up in Minnesota. The victories of Vicksburg and Gettysburg gave hope of an early return of peace. Money was plentiful and prices were rising. Notwithstanding the homestead law, there was a market for well-situated public land. John S. Pillsbury of St. Anthony had been appointed to a vacancy in the board of regents in November of that year, and immediately applied his remarkable business talent to the university affairs. His conclusions were embodied in a bill introduced into the state senate of 1864, of which he was a member. ”

“ The student body have secured high places in intercollegiate athletics, oratorical and forensic contests, adding much to the repute of the university, already holding an honorable rank for scholarship and culture. ”

“ It occurs to me that the interlocking regents of Minnesota must have sent a commission to study methods at the University of Pennsylvania; for when I asked Minnesota professors to 211tell me what happened to them, I heard the same story that I had heard in the Wharton School of Finance, told in the very same phrases.
If you displease your superiors of the Milling Trust, you may get no changes in your courses, but may have to teach large classes of freshmen, over and over again the same weary routine, until your heart breaks. You ask for more advanced classes, and you do not get them ”

“ The stability of a republican form of government depending mainly upon the intelligence of the people, it shall be the duty of the legislature to establish a general and uniform system of public schools.
Sec. 2. The proceeds of such lands as are or hereafter may be granted by the United States for the use of schools within each township in this state, shall remain a perpetual school fund to the state and not more than one-third (1/3) of said lands may be sold in two (2) years, one-third (1/3) in five 5 years, and one-third (1/3) in ten (10) years ”

“ Minnesota has no competition; and its situation in a large city and adjacent to the capital of the state gives it certain advantages, especially for its professional schools. It has been more fortunate than other state universities in retaining possession of its land grants and in finding them to be the site of vast mineral resources. Most of all it is happy in the possession of a population of high character and intelligence. ”

“ No other State contains so large a number of Swedes and Norwegians. In 1900 the foreign-born population numbered 505,318. The colored population numbered only 14,358, of whom 4959 were negroes, 7414 Indians taxed, and 1768 Indians not taxed. As is common in newly settled States, there is a large excess of the male sex. At the last census there were 22.1 inhabitants to the square mile. The State contains the two large metropolises of the Upper Mississippi Valley—Minneapolis and Saint Paul—and the per cent. of urban population is therefore high for so new a State. ”

“ The course of study adopted in most of these schools does not differ from that of the city, and while there is a great deal said about the necessity of a course of study especially adapted to the country, no one has come forward with anything very practical. The Minnesota law encourages the teaching of manual training, domestic science and elementary agriculture by offering grants to schools so doing. ”

“ Paul and then beginning at a point on the westerly limits of the city of Minneapolis and thence extending in a northwesterly direction to a point on the east bank of the Red River of the North at Breckenridge, affording La Crescent, Winona, Kellogg, Wabasha, Lake City, Red Wing, Hastings, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Osseo, Champlin, Anoka, Elk River, Big Lake, St. Cloud, Albany, Sauk Center, Alexandria, Elbow Lake, Fergus Falls, Breckenridge and intervening and adjacent communities a reasonable means of communication, each with the other and other places within the state. ”

“ No other people take more pride in giving their children a chance. In the words of a Minnesota schoolman, "They are the best people in the State to appreciate education and to want it improved." Unlike the Germans, they have left no mark on American culture. Our ideas and institutions have not been changed by their coming. What they have done is to quicken our interest in the literature of the North, and to win for it academic recognition. A department of Scandinavian is found not only in Harvard and Yale, but also in a dozen universities all the way from Chicago to Seattle. ”

“ The rank of the State has risen every decade, standing nineteenth in 1900. The largest absolute gain was in the decade 1880-90. From 1890 to 1900 the increase amounted to 34.5 per cent., as compared with 20.7 for the United States. During that decade every county in the State shared in the increase, but it was generally greatest throughout the northern ones, where the population is still very sparse. The movement of the population turned toward Minnesota at a period when the German immigration was still great and the Scandinavian peoples were just beginning to come in large numbers. ”

“ No matter how their creeds may be criticised, their joint efforts, Catholic and Protestant, have filled the state with religious, charitable, benevolent and educational institutions to an extent rarely witnessed out of it, so that if a Minnesotan goes wrong, he can blame no one but himself. ”

“ Speaker, I ask the gentleman, when he returns to his home, to tell his fellow-citizens of the East what he has seen during his visit to this great State; and, sir, we also wish him to tell them that Minnesota and the great Northwest will no longer consent to be trodden under the feet of the East. The strength of the United States and the future center of American greatness is here in Minnesota. ”

“ It is well patronized by the young men of the state who intend to devote themselves to agriculture as a profession. Quite recently a new department has been added to the institution, for the instruction of women in all that pertains to the proper education of the mistress of the farm. It goes without saying that when Minnesota farming is brought under the management and control of men and women of scientific and practical education in that particular line there will be a revolution for the better.
The methods of instruction in this school are not merely theoretical. ”