Free State University as is Connecticut of Yale or
Massachusetts of Harvard.
"Caine to see us," is the confident invitation of
everybody connected with the College; and no
body who accepts the invitation seems to go away
disappointed. "I hope you may have half as good
a time as I had," was the parting wish of a lady,
alert, active and intelligent, who had made a visit
to the place but a few weeks before. We think
she might have doubled her good wishes and had
them realized, perhaps better than that. * * *
(We here omit the description in detail of many
departments, with their outfits and workings—ED.)
During the past third of a century this institu
tion of learning has had a varied experience of
hope and disappointment, failure and success. The
.present site was made over by deed, in 1857, from
Gen. James Irwin to the Farmers' High School
of Pennsylvania, two hundred acres being donated
and two hundred sold to the Board of Trustees,
making in all a valuable farm of four hundred
By act of the . Legislature the State Agricultural
Society was authorized to give Sio,ooo towards
founding the new school. The Board having ob
tained subscriptions and donations, in addition to
the land, amounting to $25,000, the Legislature
voted an equal sum ; another $25,000 was voted
on like conditions ; and the trustees received from
the State Treasurer the sum of $50,000 thus ap
propriated. With these sums in hand the work
was begun, and one wing of the main building
was completed and opened for the admission of
students in 1859. .Owing to the great and rapid
increase of prices in 1861, contracts made for the
completion of the building could not be enforced,
and the trustees were to finish it at a much greater
cost than had been estimated. The Legislature
made an additional appropriation of $49,900 to
meet the increased outlay.
In 1862 the United States Congress donated to
the several States public landS equal to 30,000
acres for each Senator and Representative from
each State under the census of i. 860 Only such
THE FREE LANCE.
land as was liable to private entry at $1.25 per
acre was included in this donation. The act pro
vided that all moneys derived from the sale of
this land, or land scrip, should be securely inves
ted in stocks of the United States or of the States,
or Other safe stocks, yielding not less than five per
cent. upon their par value ; and that the money so
invested should constitute a perpetual fund, "the
capital of which shall remain forever undiminished,
and the interest of which shall be inviolably appro
priated by each State which may claim the benefit
of the act, to the endowment, support and mainte
nance of at least one College, where the leading
object shall be, without excluding other scientific
and classical studies, and including military tac
tics, to teach such branches of learning as are re
lated to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such
manner as the Legislature of the State may pre
scribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical
education of the industrial classes in the several
pursuits and professions of life."
Under the census of iB6o Pennsylvania had
twenty-four representatives and two senators in
Congress, and received land scrip representing
780,000 acres of land. The sale of this land was
not well managed, and the total proceeds of the
scrip were only $439,186.80. In New York, the
late Ezra Cornell bought the entire land scrip
from the State, paying the market price for it at
the time, and agreeing to locate and hold it,
and to give Cornell University the benefit
of its advance in price. The result is that all
the lands sold have brought high figures, some be
ing yet held in trust, and the endowment of the
University from that source alone will be from
$3,000,000 to $4,000,000. Pennsylvania might
have done nearly as well with a philanthropic cit
izen like Ezra Cornell to look after this public in
terest. Cornell University has now an annual in
come of more than $lOO,OOO from her land scrip
endowment, against $30,000 to Pennsylvania
State College from the like source—the Legisla
ture having added enough to make the endow
ment fund $500,000, upon which interest is paid