s 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, and iron construction, turners' work,
slating, plastering, painting, and plumbing, architectural drawing