The University And The Farmers

Policy as well as public spirit is very likely at the bottom of the arrangement maile by tbe authorities oï the state university ,vhereby sonie of the professors will tako part in the series of farmers' institutes to be held the coming winter. The farmers of the state have showu considerable opposition to the insititutioii whlch their representatives in the legislature have made manifest by a disposition to ent down needed appropriations or withho.d them entirely. Soch opposition arises trom a failure to appreeiate the value of the school to the state, es)"cially to the cause of agricultura. Many farmers entertain the theory that a state university, maintained at public expense, is a costly luxury, increasiag the burden of their taxes without eouferriug mucli, f any, bsneflt upon them in return. While not sharing this opinión, we believe it to be the part of wisdom for the authorities to bring the institution nto closer touch with this large and in(luential class of its supporters. By sending representativo meinbers of its faculty, to instruct fo the farmers alonR certiiin liives of ka iwleilue that enter practicall into the vocation of the farmer, snelt ss the Sciences of botanv, zoology and chemistry supply, il, i l issible, we do not doubt, to reñí ve an existin; prejudiceliat tliBs university is of no practical value to the farmer, and thus Convert a fee!in of indtfference or hostility into oue of friendliues4 and admiration. The sclieme has in it niuch of sound policy and profit, both to the farmers of the state and to the university. - Detroit Free Press. The Philadelpiua Record says that the Dingley luw comes thuuderingdown the line in the second month of itaoperation, with a deficit of three and a half million dollars. What a noise there must have leen in the second month of the Wilson law, when the deficit was thirteen and a half million ! It is not a kind thing for the editora of newspapers to insinúate that just because John II. XTcLean, of Washington. D. 0. (residing in Ohio these few months), happens to own the controling stoek of the $5,000,000 Washington Gaslight Oompany, au-1 also interest in a street raihvav capitalized at $12,000,000, and beeause the afFairs of these monopolies are regulated by the U. S. Conress, John R. phould want to get into the Senate. Wlien the Atlantic Monthly flrst appeared forty yeara ago, its articles were unsigned, and the public was often puzzledoverquestions of authorship. When the first complete imlex of the magazine was made, corering its ftrst period of twenty years, the compiler found that the authors theinselves were sometiuies in the dark ; and this confusión seems to have extended even into the time when the siguatures were given. "In one case," the compiler wrote, "though the name of the author was published at the time, and he appears in the publishers' books as having been suitably paid, he stoutly declaves he nevei' wrote the article attributed to him, though he has not been put to the test of beingasked to refund the money received." This would indeed have been a spur to recantation worthy of the Spanish Inquisition.