| Show PROF VANS EVANS ANTI CONS consolidation 0 LIBATION VIEWS editor deseret news in your issue of july 31 1 ventured to correct certain figures anti and statements given out in a report by one of our salt lake merchants respecting the agricultural college and the university of utah naturally enough I 1 supposed the matter would end there for the errors I 1 pointed out arose so obviously out of misinformation but evidently the end is not yet since wednesday evenings paper contained a letter fiant mr of logan nat not only adopting in the main the figures and assertions of mr hewlett but charging me with bias and unfairness in it my corrections of them so I 1 must once more enter the arena to defend my position against a fresh ant antagonist agonist THE MATTER OF attendance my other letter emphasized the difference in the regular attendance of the two schools the one at salt lake I 1 stated had during the year just closed students the one at logan 66 1 I called special attention to the fad fact that of the former number were of college rank while only 71 of the latter were but mr suspicious of everything that tells against the college questioned these figures he could easily have verified them had he gone either to the catalogues cataloguer catal of the respective institutions for the year 1906 7 or to the deport of the commission he says that lie he did not have before him the annuals for this year but it did not occur to him however that he ought in justice to film himself self and his community to keep silent in the matter instead lie he went to the registration of the year before in the belief that the attendance had not mailed to any great extent of coure lie he found different figures namely university students of college grade of preparatory grade total agricultural college college grade high school or preparatory 37 total and these figures lie he sets before mine with the triumphant declaration A comparison of these two statements is all sufficient chent to prove the bias of the professor I 1 accept your figures mr it and still insist that uty my own are ar correct corr Act and so can you but how could aou ou inter infer thai that tile the attendance last ast year over the previous ear could not have varied to any great extent listen to the I 1 facts according to your own statement the total attendance al ai the agricultural college of college students tor for the year 1904 3 5 was and according to the catalogue of that institution tor for the coming year the total college enrollment for last year was an increase of only 2 according to yourself there were college students at the university year before last now the report of the commission manuscript 1 p 28 gives the college enrollment at the university during the year just past as here is an increase in the university of 87 over last year as against 2 in the college how unfortunate it was that you did not have before you the catalogues cataloguer catal of 1906 7 but I 1 am not through with this matter of attendance for there Is a phase of it that does not readily appear to any one not familiar with school statistics the college has a different standard stan daid of or ranking its students front from that of the university and it is lower too mr the southern institution I 1 presupposes in its college students more than three years of accredited high school woi k the northern school lequir ie quires cs only two reference to the active catalogues cataloguer catal will enable one to verify this statement accordingly the freshman tresh class at ai the A C which is generally the largest there and elsewhere would be ranked as at the U ot of V U or to verse the statement tile the third year preparatory students at the salt lake achoo would be regarded as first year college at the logan school and the standard at the northern institution ila has been gradually raised with the tl e I 1 growth of its enrollment else we should have as we actually had a few years ago while ranking at the university was the same as now boys land ind girls going there ther efrem from the grades ind and ranking as college students sir bir may regard these sir strictures laures is as a alighting slighting reference to the standard of the college but he should remember that they are the slighting reference of facts not of my blasor bias or unfairness nor is this all As a matter of fact the commission raised the standard above even that of the university it work equivalent to that done at an accredited high school say of ogden or salt lake be required of those who enter upon higher work then the number of college students at both the university and the agricultural college would be cut down we should in this event have at the former school and 21 at the latter THE SELF supporting PLAN mr endeavors to hold me le ie for the idea of a tree free state school being sell self supporting and calls me to arise and explain more fully how this can be done the idea he says is entirely new to him how lie he could charge me with advocating such a proposition passes my comprehension in fit view of what I 1 said in plait plain n english here is the statement what do the people of logan think of the pleas picas their spokesman made before legislatures and conventions a few deais ago to the effect that the college would be belf supporting now that their representatives demand at a ing single sea sion and et t mr thore ra ien holds ine responsible for the ibe idea perhaps the following echo from the constitutional convention will show him that the plan is not altogether new to him but also that tha it originated gina ina ted not with me but with a cache valley man anan arx Mry joel loel racks though le was not one of the delegation front from cache but I 1 has nearly all his ala me life lived liv ed ja in that county made the Sol following lowing plea be fore the convention the agricultural college received from congress or this year and in two or three years it will have reached a year they received from other sources several thousand dollars a year a fund entirely adequate to pay all the expenses of that institution and make it self supporting I 1 blame no one for this hopeful forecast I 1 merely quote the passage to show that it is not my own plan the matter of its origin however really has nothing to do with this dispute as aa indeed the the idea itself has not THE EXPENSES mr Thores cn finds considerable ae cause for complaint in my statement t t that the demands of the agricultural college on the last legislature exceeded those made by the combined university the normal schools and the school of lilacs and hl he opposes this by the following 1 i I find ou oil page 4 42 bof 0 the report of the board of regents ot of the university submitted to the jast legislature that the re jp guest lor for the blen wis was the entire amount asked for by bythe the college was S 2 8 0 awe lv e adato add to this the elie amount received flon fl on the federal government during the bl ennius enn luni the total amount Contin continued tied on page six PROF EVANS REPLIES TO ANTI consolidation VIEWS I 1 continued from page 3 would be but it if the in come from the federal government Is adda to the ahe amount asked from the legislature by the college the income from the land grant fund of the university must also be added to the amount requested the legislature legis latu re ity by the university the figures as he fie gives thew then then become beeline university demand near nearly more than the amount asked for by the college well these the s figures are wrong A little careful examination of the report of the board of regents would show mr Th that the fa Is merely an estimate made by the heads of deparini depart departments ni ants and includes the branch normal page 10 will give him the amount asked for by the regents which is 2 exclusive elc elusive of for the branch normal the university expected to get 40 from the interest on the land fund and the agricultural college expected acted to get from the government for instruction work and the experiment station besides from the interest on the laud fund the figures therefore are 0 a difference of asked for lip by the college these figures do not however reveal ve a I 1 the s situation as it Is mr must remember that it Is not the agricultural college as against the university but rather the agricultural college as against three institutions na namely niely the university of utah the state stace normal school and the state school of 0 mines when this tact fact is kept in mind the comparatively exorbitant demand of the logan school on the public purse bel be comes amazingly clear let me explain by a comparison of our own stale state schools with those of colorado in our sister stale the institutions are separate that is the four schools are in four different places now for the years 1903 and 1904 the appropriations were to the mining school to the normal school ag college to the university i a or to set tile the figures as they would appear if as with us there were a combination of the university the I 1 norm normal al school and the school of mines to the ag college to all the others the point that I 1 cali calf special attention tion to in these figures is the difference between the amount given the agricultural college and the other three schools in utah the college receives actually a larger amount than do the three others whereas la in colorado the same institutions get more than four times tile the amount to be sure it there were a bombina tiou tion as here the separate schools would not receive the same absolute amount but there would be the same relative difference between the three f institutions on the one hand and the one on the other was I 1 not therefore justified in my complaint of a comparative extravagance with respect to the agricultural college I 1 could even concede the correctness of mr air thoresent Thore sens figures without having to relinquish my point WHERE extravagance IS Mc eption is also taken to my statement that other schools in the state are affected by the separate maintien ance n ac e of ot alie ciliege Co liege and mr thore se sen n waxes hot in charging tile the university with being extravagant and in suggesting a remedy out our professors have gone lie declares and seen what tle wo id renowned institutions are doing and will without regard to te finances of our new and small commonwealth or it he ie pie pai atoil educational status of our students numbers or grades have introduced trod and established such courses in our institutions and have then appeared before our legislature for moneys tb support the same let us look into tills this matter mattar a little further sir mr and I 1 agree that the population of our state Is meagre the resources resources slender education campara lively elementary so much the more reason therefore as we both admit tor for economy in the expenditure of the public bublic funds fund sir mr thoresent Thore sens plan of economy Is to go behind these expenditures and unwise demands anil and cut them down on their merits this means of course that these two institutions will be main talked I 1 second 1 rate ate the consequence will be that our young men will go east and west for their undergraduate work not all but at least as g great real a num number beras as go now besides the educational interests of the state wilt will suffer as well as its reputation in a point of which we have always justly been proud certainly sir mr Th dresen the educational expenses can be cut down cut down to any point that heedless statesmanship may inay deem fit does not your cry of economy seem what you charge mine with being a sound to tile the galleries wholly different from this is the plan suggested by the friends Tri ends of ift hish h er education in utah they reason thus here is the agricultural college asking more than this large amount is due aue to its separate maintenance jf if it were combined with the university as ans the other sch are it would require only one oae fourth that sum as much probably as the school of mines then instead of college students costing the state per capita as at the agricultural college at present they would cost only 27 as at the university ver sity one president one library one set of apparatus one museum one set of professors one catalogue would be sufficient all this his in the language of the commission would mean the saving to the state in 15 years of more than a million dollars and the work to be better done ou on the heels of such a saving might come either one great university not two small ones or it the is Is kept at its present standard rf scores of additional high schools in she ahe va rious dous towns of utah for I 1 still that other schools in the state are affected the university is because every two ears there has to be an unjust division of school money as between these two institutions that is as I 1 have shown the two get about equal shares notwithstanding thi the university Is s made up of three I 1 separate schools the high and the district schools suffer not because the money set apart is taken in whole or in part parl and given to the college nud aud university but bacans be canse tile the burden ot of taxation for higher education du Is so great that th atthe the school taxes have to be kept down the remedy Is either to save in 15 ears by consolidation or by giving it to build up a greater university ver sity or by establishing secondary schools throughout the state no the extravagance lies not in giving to the university enough to put it on a par with the world re downed institution s nor yet as mr contemptuously puts it in spending unreasonable large sums s u ms for students in obsolete classical couras course s but it lies rather in tile the egregious greg ious blunder deepening gradually into a crime that established at the beginning two separate institutions and in the still more ous blunder that will refuse after 11 years of waste extravagance and to rectify it but obstinately persists in perpetuating such a condition to be a financial curse to our children and our childrens children yours for a greater university JOHN HENRY EVANS |
