The establishment of colleges and universities by the aid of national grants has depended very much for their character upon the industrial tendencies of the respective States, it being understood that the land grants have principally been given to those of the newer States and Territories which required development, although some of the institutions of the older States on the Atlantic seaboard have also been recipients of the same fund, which in itself only dates from an act of Congress in 1862.  In California and Missouri, both States abounding in mineral resources, there are courses in mining and metallurgy provided in the institutions receiving national aid.  In the great grain-producing sections of the Mississippi Valley the colleges are principally devoted to agriculture, whereas the characteristic feature of the Iowa and Kansas schools is the prominence given to industries.

We need not devote attention to the aims and arrangements of the agricultural colleges proper, but will pass at once to those which deal with the mechanical arts, dealing first of all with those that are assisted by the national land grant.  Taking them alphabetically, we have first the State Agricultural College of Colorado, in the mechanical and drawing department of which shops for bench work in wood and iron and for forging have been recently erected, this institution being one of the newest in America.  In the Illinois Industrial University the student of mechanical engineering receives practice in five shops devoted to pattern-making, blacksmithing, moulding and founding, benchwork for iron, and machine tool-work for iron.  In the first shop the practice consists of planing, chiseling, turning, and the preparation of patterns for casting.  The ordinary blacksmithing operations take place in the second shop, and those of casting in the third.  In the fourth there is, first of all, a course of freehand benchwork, and afterward the fitting of parts is undertaken.  In the fifth shop all the fundamental operations on iron by machinery are practiced, the actual work being carefully outlined beforehand by drawings.  This department of the University consists, in point of fact, of three separate schools, destined to qualify the student for every kind of engineering—­mining, railway, mechanical, and architectural.  In addition to the shops and machine rooms, there are well furnished cabinets of geological and mineralogical specimens, chemical laboratories for assaying and metallurgy, stamp mill, furnaces, etc., and, in fact, every known vehicle for practical instruction.  The school of architecture prepares students for the building profession.  Among the subjects in this branch are office work and shop practice, constructing joints in carpentry and joinery, cabinet making and turning, together with modeling in clay.  The courses in mathematics, mechanics and physics are the same as those in the engineering school; but the technical studies embrace drawing from casts, wood, stone, brick,