| Show WHY TWO STATE universities we propound this significant question early to the newly elected legislators of this thia territory because it to is important and they should take ample time to consider elder it well before coming together it will probably require an answer at their hands hand and we think it essential that they prepare themselves to answer it aright it is unkind to revive the memory of the rather undignified bartering through which in consideration of votes promised and given the territory ryd funds funda four our yeara ago were parceled out to various institution the insane lusane asylum needed an ampro privation oria pria tion and so BO did the utah alty ity buethe but the representatives of other counties also felt that they ought to have a slice of the treas s lavor favor so BO the reform school at ogden and the agricultural college at logan were called into being we do not here may aay the appropriations for these institutions were unnecessary we merely allude now to the program that was waa conceived forgetting every available dollar and voting it here bore and there in pursuance thereof atthe at the time there H ore ere a few mon men if we remember rightly who bad given the matter of public education serious thought and who advanced some wise reasons why the diffusion of effort contemplated by the establishment of the agricultural college as aa a separate and I 1 many respects a rival unive university ralty should be avoided we recall by ane way that many of these wise reasons came from men who did not live in salt bait lake city aud and who could have had bad no selfish or personal motive therefore for urging that the proposed agricultural institution should be united with and be an adjunct of the one territorial school already in existence their argument was that with the e appropriations which would in the case ol of division eo ao to two stunted and half starved concerns would be sufficient to establish and maintain with credit one school which would answer every possible requirement of the extra college and at the same time constitute a head bead to the public school system which would be a source of pride to the people lt it has been a matter of general regret that these sensible propositions were lost sight eight of then but there to la a hope that these same persons persona or at least weir arguments will be more effective with our new body of legis hitous there has been some experience acquired in the finances of higher education which we did not have at that time we may possibly profit a little by the experience certainly it if it was an error then to do what was done it would now dow be a far more unpardonable one if not a direct imposition upon the people to perpetuate the mistake longer from a casual acquaintance with the case wo we should say that at least a year is now being absolutely wasted in maintaining this double burden such competition to is too cost coat ly it the people of salt bait lake which county has bas the university and the people of cache which county has baa the college do not think so the people of the other counties of the territory which have to bear their share of the load will doubtless think so the territory to ia now in a low state of finance scarcely able to sustain one capable university with credit and do justice to its other obligations were the resources of the treasury far more generous than they are say what ten or twenty years of prosperity would make them it would still be a question whether our educational interests even then would be better on with two parallel it ii of higher learning than they would with one the experience of other wealth is that even where the question of funds does not need to be con eldered dered i such division or diffusion is unprofitable and unsatisfactory in its results but bat for us um it Is enough at present tu to look at the mousy money phase of the subject every year will add prodigiously to the sum above named as a wasted provided the two universities make anything like the progress they ought to that added to the regular sum appropriated to one of the present institutions would make a school infinitely superior to either one at the present time or it would be a handsome annual sum for some other de erving and necessary public tabo if the former a large portion of the or more which la Is yearly carried abroad by our young men seeking a higher learning auld 0 uld be spent at home tor the same game purpose and with great advantage to the student with the difference which how bow prevails Ig between the facilities of our home and those of harvard yale or cornell the student with high aspirations feels justified in finishing his bis bedocs aduca alon abroad but with a little wise wigs legislation in the line lice here sug heated and the just beneficence of the moneyed men of this city that difference might be so BO far overcome that in point of facilities for actual scholarship it would exist more in fancy than reality we submit these few points for or the COMI corn i g legislators to ponder over they do not dot begin to cover the whole etiole ic round or do the subject full ful justice meanwhile if there be any who think they i ave valid reason for an op opposite view of the cage cafe our columns columbi are open to them |
