<Gt3* 
 
 ADDRESS OF 
 
 JUDGE J. Z. GEORGE, 
 
 BELIVERED AT 
 
 At the Laying of the Corner Stone 
 
 (. 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Agricultural and ;>|cchanical -ffpollege. 
 
 September 22 , 1879 . 
 
 JACKSON, MISS.: 
 
 THE COMET B<OOK PRINTING ESTABLISHMENT. 
 1879. 
 
JUDGE J. Z. GEORGE, 
 
 Delivered at Starkville, Miss., September 22, 1879. 
 
 The business which has brought us together, is one 
 of serious import — the inauguration of the A. & M. 
 College, by laying its corner-stone. 
 
 As the enterprise is new, as it proposes new methods 
 of education, and seeks to attain new ends, it is well 
 some explanation should be made of the purposes of 
 the Trustees. 
 
 I shall, therefore, point out some of the difficulties 
 which are to be overcome* if success be attained, and 
 call attention to some of the objects which it is pro- 
 posed to be accomplished, and give some of the rea- 
 sons which justify, and, in my judgment, demand the 
 liberal and generous support of the institution by the 
 Legislature and the public. 
 
 First Need. 
 
 The first great need for this College is, that it shall 
 unite what has heretofore in Mississippi, at least, been 
 separated — high mental culture and manual labor. 
 
 We propose to yoke these two forces together, and 
 
[ 4 ] 
 
 send them out on the mission of building" up Missis- 
 sippi — advancing her to that high plane of material 
 prosperity and intellectual improvement to which her 
 natural resources and the genius of her people entitle 
 her. 
 
 Education of Brain and Hand. 
 
 We propose to educate the brain and the hand to- 
 gether; to make the same human being both a thinker 
 and a worker. As God has given each one of his 
 children both hands and brains, muscle and intellect, 
 we propose in training this work, to follow the order 
 He has pointed out; not to mar or counteract it. He 
 gave us the physical and intellectual man united in 
 one — the mind to think and the body to labor. This 
 is the perfect being that God created and placed on 
 this earth to work out his destiny. We propose to 
 train and educate this being in all his faculties, powers 
 and endowments, as he received them from his Creator. 
 We do not propose to make half men — by stimulating 
 the intellect into an abnormal activity, and leaving the 
 body to waste and perish; nor do we propose to reverse 
 this by the developing muscle unnaturally, and crush- 
 ing out the spiritual and intellectual part of our being. 
 
 We propose to make here no dreamers, no splendid 
 and dazzling intellectual prodigies, with neither the 
 capacity nor the will to do the world’s works nor, on 
 the other hand, do we propose to make machines of 
 men, mere automatons — to be worked and moved by 
 the will and intellect of others. We would endow 
 each man with power to conceive and determine what 
 he should do, and how it should be done, and with the 
 capacity and will to work out practically, with his own 
 hands, his own conceptions. 
 
 Within these halls and in these fields, as a part of a 
 
[ 5 ] 
 
 system of education, we propose that study and man- 
 ual labor shall go hand in hand, so that the graduate 
 of this institution may be able to know what to do, 
 how to do it, and then be able to do for himself what 
 he has judged should be performed. 
 
 So much for the general aims of this College. But 
 as neither all kinds of manual labor can be efficiently 
 performed by one man, nor the whole circle of human 
 knowledge mastered by him, we propose to select from 
 this work and this knowledge that which the needs of 
 Mississippi most demand shall be performed and pos- 
 sessed by her people. 
 
 The interests of Mississippi are almost exclusively 
 agricultural. Her climate, her soil, the world’s need 
 for her crops, the absence of mines, and quarries, and 
 sea ports, the tastes and habits of her people, all 
 demonstrate that the foundation of her prosperity lies 
 in successful agriculture. 
 
 The present condition of our people, their debts and 
 embarrasments ; the present condition of our agricul- 
 ture, our worn out and exhausted fields in the hill dis- 
 tricts ; the need of fertilization, our ignorance of the 
 practice of farming not based no the natural fertility 
 of the soil ; the disposition of the people to remove to 
 fresher and newer countries ; the prevalent desire to 
 abandon agriculture for other pursuits ; the wish to 
 abandon country life and try the precarious, and un- 
 certain, and over crowded business of cities and towns; 
 the general decay and shrinkage of all values ; the 
 discontent and unrest of the disappointed, the immo- 
 bility of despair, all admonish us that something must 
 be done — that there must be some change of our 
 methods in the leading industry of the State. 
 
[ 6 ] 
 
 Practical Agriculture. 
 
 Recognizing the needs of the State, the Trustees of 
 this institution propose to have taught here, in a large 
 degree, that which pertains to scientific and practical 
 agriculture, including in this term horticulture, and 
 stock raising; and to teach that in a way that the grad- 
 uate shall really be fitted to follow and practice agri- 
 culture in all its branches. This is our great aim for 
 the present. In after years, when agriculture shall 
 have become more prosperous, and the needs of the 
 State shall be more in the direction of manufactories 
 or other industrial callings, the teaching of these will 
 have more attention. 
 
 The education proposed to be given, though looking 
 mainly to the fitting of the student for a successful 
 career in agriculture, will not, as some erroneously sup- 
 pose, be small in amount or ignoble in degree. 
 
 Amount of Education for Agriculture. 
 
 There is no calling which men follow that requires a 
 larger fund of information, a clearer and better train- 
 ed judgment, greater versatility in capacity, a larger 
 abundance of mental resources, greater familiarity with 
 the operation of the laws of nature, than agriculture. 
 
 All other callings nearly are capable of sub-divis- 
 ions — so that their followers may become specialists 
 in some parts or branches. I believe it requires the 
 separate work of more than a half dozen to manufac- 
 ture a pin. 
 
 In agriculture as practiced in the United States, 
 there is but little room for such division of labor and 
 knowledge. On each farm, all the knowledge and the 
 labor needed on all farms, are required. The growing 
 of hay, the cereals, cotton, the various garden vegeta- 
 
[ 7 ] 
 
 bles, and the fruits of the orchard, and vineyard ; the 
 breeding and rearing of cattle, horses, mules, and 
 sheep, and domestic fowls ; the fattening of such as 
 are desired for food ; provision against wind, rains, and 
 storms, and drouth ; the proper preparation, seeding 
 and cultivation of the various kinds of soil ; the pro- 
 tection of the crops against insects ; the making and 
 application of manures; the making of fences, and 
 dwellings, and out-houses ; the caring for and growth 
 and preservation of suitable kinds of timber ; the ven- 
 tilation and disinfection of all buildings ; the care for 
 the vigor and health of all kinds of live stock, and the 
 proper remedies for those that are diseased, and the 
 prevention of the spread of infection among them i the 
 making of gates, bridges, roads, ax and hoe handles, 
 stocking of plows and harrows, drainage and landscape 
 gardening, all are the business of the farmer, and 
 should be understood by him. 
 
 To do this work intelligently and well, involves a 
 knowledge of chemistry, physics, mechanics, civil en- 
 gineering, zoology, entomology, physiology, compara- 
 tive anatomy, botany, meteorology, and geology. I 
 do not mean that the farmer should thoroughly under- 
 stand all that is embraced in these branches of human 
 knowledge ; but I do mean to assert that a knowledge 
 of the general and elementary principles of each is, 
 if not essential, at least highly advantageous ; and that 
 the continued study of them, in connection with the 
 practical operations of his calling, furnish the farmer 
 a wide and useful field for high intellectual exercise. 
 
 Energy, pluck, saving, though united with ignorance, 
 have won on rich and unexhausted lands a kind of pe- 
 cuniary success ; but it is temporary and costly ; it 
 impoverishes the soil, wears out the land, and, in the 
 
[ 8 ] 
 
 end, creates a greater necessity for a more intelligent 
 agriculture. 
 
 No youth may avoid this College because it will not 
 teach enough. 
 
 The technical training of the youth of Mississippi, 
 as farmers and mechanics, is the main object of this 
 institution. Still, we do not propose to stop the edu- 
 cational process at that point. The farmer’s world, 
 though principally on his farm, is not circumscribed 
 by the boundary lines of his land. We recognize that 
 he is a citizen of a free country — that he has rights 
 and duties connected with the due organization 
 and operation of governmental and social forces. 
 Having made the student a thinker, by the training 
 specially required for a farmer, we propose to make him 
 a correct reasoner, and to give him the power of elegant 
 and forcible expression. He must not only have the 
 power to investigate, but to weigh and determine; and 
 having reached a conclusion, he must be able to state 
 not only what it is, but the process by which he reach- 
 ed it. We therefore propose to accomplish that most 
 difficult, yet most desirable of educational re- 
 sults — training the faculty of reasoning — giving it 
 healthy food for expansion and growth, and at the 
 same time supplying the power of a clear and forcible 
 communication of thought. 
 
 We do not except, nor do we desire to bestow the 
 fatal gift of that elequence which equally subjugates 
 the reason of its possessor, and captivates but does not 
 convince its hearers. We do not mean to make men the 
 abject slaves of this power of facile and elegant expres- 
 sion, nor to add to the list of the demented by aiding in the 
 subjection of the brain to the tongue; and of thought 
 to speech. This disease is now too common, and may 
 
I 9 ] 
 
 be denominated glossamania — lingual insanity— word- 
 madness. 
 
 Dignity of Labor. 
 
 We propose, also, to dignify and ennoble manual la- 
 bor, Under the prevailing system, the more a man lias 
 been educated, the more he is indisposed to manual 
 labor ; brain work has been regarded as unfit to be 
 yoked with hand labor. And the educated man tvho 
 has failed to gain his living without a resort to manual 
 labor, has been regarded as a failure in life. 
 
 Education has, thus far, unfitted men for manual 
 labor. It has placed a mark of inferiority on him, who 
 has no other means of subsistence than his own labor. 
 Certain it is that a large majority of the inhabitants 
 of the world — a large majority of the people of the 
 United States, and of this State, are now compelled-, 
 and will for all time be compelled to gain their living 
 by their daily labor. 
 
 There is no way of preventing this. This labor con- 
 stitutes the wealth and furnishes the comforts and lux- 
 uries of the world. In fact, wealth is utterly valueless 
 except as an actual or potential purchaser of human 
 labor or its results. That which can be had without 
 human labor, however useful, is without commercial 
 value. The air we breathe, though essential to life, yet 
 because it is the gift of nature, inexhaustable and free 
 to all, is not a thing which can be estimated as wealth. 
 But let a mode be discovered by which some substance 
 may, by human labor be infused into the air, making 
 it more wholesome, more health-giving, and let the air 
 thus improved be capable of being confined to the 
 separate use of him who has thus improved it, and 
 
 then by this addition of human labor it becomes 
 
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[ 10 ] 
 
 wealth and’ is* tlie object of the desires and energies of 
 men. 
 
 If gold and diamonds were strewn all over the land 
 like pebbles on the sea shore, they would become as 
 worthless as a part of wealth, as the pebbles themselves. 
 
 Duty as to Laborers. 
 
 Since then all wealth — all the comforts and luxuries 
 of life are the product of human labor ; and since a 
 majority of mankind are, and must always remain 
 laborers, it is the clear duty of a free government in- 
 stituted by the people for the common and equal good 
 of ail, to so arrange its policies and administrative 
 forces, that this labor should be made the highest of ef- 
 ficiency and productiveness to the laborer, and entirely 
 accordant with his physical, moral, intellectual and 
 social well-being. If there is a stigma attached to it, 
 it must be removed ; if pleasure and improvement can 
 be associated with it, the association must take place. 
 In agricultural pursuits this association is easy and 
 natural. 
 
 Union in Labor and Knowledge of Agriculture. 
 
 Let the agriculturist learn the principles upon which 
 his calling rests ; let him be taught that which tits in- 
 stead of that which unfits him for the work he has to 
 do, and he will at every step of his progress, have oc- 
 casion to think, to investigate and determine. As his 
 plow turns up the bosom of the earth, he will observe 
 the nature and character of the soil in different parts 
 of the field, and consider its adaptabilities and its 
 wants. He will think of the construction of his plow — 
 its best shape to do perfect work, and at the same time 
 to secure the least resistance to its progress in the 
 earth. And these or similar mental operations will 
 
1 11 ] 
 
 accompany all the labor lie may perform. There is 
 not a single operation on the farm— not a blow stricken, 
 with which intelligence and thought may not be profit- 
 ably associated. A mind properly trained, and thus 
 exercised in all the employments of the body, will 
 grow and strengthen ; and with increased and increas- 
 ing vigor and strength, will be able to take in and 
 solve all the great problems of domestic and political 
 -economy ; and last, though not least, will dignify and 
 •ennoble its occupation, and bring to its possessor the 
 pleasures and the triumphs of knowledge and intellect. 
 
 Creative Art. 
 
 Agriculture is the only creative art. All other works 
 of men consist only in changing the form of something 
 already existing, and this change is universally ac- 
 complished through a loss or destruction of some 
 part of the matter which has been metamorphosed. 
 Agriculture creates ; it adds to what before existed. 
 It plants one seed and reaps one hundred ; 
 it thus augments by ninety-nine fold former ex- 
 istences. In this creative process the agriculturist 
 uses mainly the forces of nature. Shall he who evokes, 
 and subjects to the good and happiness of mankind, 
 the grand powers and capacities of an infinite nature? 
 be a dullard and an idiot, a blind wanderer in the 
 great work-house of Providence, trusting that by luck 
 or chance, he may stumble on a prosperous issue to 
 his labors ? 
 
 That this technical education of farmers is not uni- 
 versally recognized as necessary, is mainly due to the 
 farmers themselves. They have, in the main, been 
 content to have it regarded that agriculture was a 
 mere contest between the muscle of the laborer, and 
 the briars and noxious weeds which war against their 
 
[ 12 1 
 
 crops. When a farmer lias had the means to educate; 
 his sons, he has educated them out of agriculture into 
 the professions’. It is one of the objects of this Col- 
 lege to remove this temptation on the part of intellect 
 and culture to seek other walks in life to the neglect 
 of agriculture. 
 
 Influence in Public. 
 
 The general education, we propose to give added to 
 the technical training, will lit the farmer for instruct- 
 ive and pleasant social intercourse, and place him in 
 that position where he can take a useful part in public 
 affairs, and exercise an influence beneficial to the 
 State. 
 
 I think the influence of agriculturists (including in 
 this term all who by mechanics or otherwise, contrib- 
 ute in any way to the development of the agricultural 
 wealth of the State) ought to be increased in public 
 affairs. I think there ought to be a larger participa- 
 tion by them in the discharge of duties which relate 
 to the due management of the affairs of the State and 
 the counties. I think that influence would be good. 
 That it should be good and good only, it must needs 
 proceed from men who have an intelligent conception 
 of the public wants, and of the means to provide for 
 these wants. I have no sympathy with the senseless 
 clamor sometimes heard which would exclude from all 
 participation in public offices, men however qualified, 
 and however patriotic, merely because they are not 
 connected directly with agriculture; and I have as little 
 for that equal folly that demands the selection of an 
 officer merely upon the ground that he is a farmer or 
 mechanic, without reference to his qualifications. 
 
 In a free government, the true emanation of the pop- 
 
[ 13 ] 
 
 ular will — the laws and policies should be the result 
 of the average interests, and average thought, and 
 average aspirations of the people. Among the Anglo- 
 Saxon race and their descendants, there seems to be 
 an aptitude for free institutions; and this aptitude 
 seems to consist, in a large degree, in the capacity to 
 ascertain what this common and average opinion is, 
 and then to give it effect. This is what may be termed 
 the common seiise of the community, and the govern- 
 ment — its tendencies and policies — can rarely be higher, 
 nobler or wiser than this common sense demands. In 
 the formation of this average and common opinion — 
 in giving it voice and force in the government, the ag- 
 riculturists of the State, constituting four-fifths of the 
 people, should exercise a potential influence. They 
 are usually conservative. The methods by which they 
 acquire pecuniary independence are prudence, patience, 
 energy and economy. As a rule, they are opposed to 
 a wasteful and extravagant administration — as tax- 
 payers, and not tax-receivers, their influence would be 
 to cut down expenditures to the lowest possible limit 
 consistent with administrative efficiency. Unskilled 
 in political and party machinery, they would be against 
 all jobs and rings — all bounties to favorites — all ex- 
 penditures not for the public good. 
 
 I would not like to see a Legislature composed ex- 
 clusively of farmers and mechanics, nor would it be 
 for the public good that there should be no Represen- 
 tative of these interests in that body. There should 
 be in every Legislature men skilled in the laws of the 
 State, competent to put in appropriate language the 
 statutes which are to be enacted, and to determine how 
 far a new statute will entrench upon the provisions of 
 existing laws. There ought also to be there an influ- 
 
[ 14 ] 
 
 ential body of men connected with the leading indus- 
 tries of the State — familiar with the wants and wishes 
 of the great mass of the people — sharing equally with 
 them the burdens and disasters and successes of life. 
 If they should draft no laws, if they should inaugurate 
 no new and untried policies; still there will be that in 
 the very atmosphere in which such a body of men 
 move which will influence beneficially the action of the 
 Legislature. 
 
 Influence on Negroes. 
 
 I have said that the capacity for the safe and orderly 
 working of free institutions seemed to be a race apti- 
 tude of the Anglo Saxons, and their descendants, and 
 this aptitude seems to consist largely in tho capacity 
 of that race to understand and give effect to the com- 
 mon and average opinion and aspirations of the peo- 
 ple — that this was governing by the common sense of 
 the community. 
 
 It is the peculiar felicity of the Anglo-Saxon race, 
 that this average common sense of the people has fa- 
 vored equality in rights and privileges among the peo- 
 ple. That it has been liberty-loving, and at the same 
 time conservative and law-abiding. 
 
 It has bowed before the majesty of law, and sought 
 redress for wrongs by lawful means. It has been pro- 
 gressive ; but it has reached its aims by sure and slow 
 steps, tempering progress with conservatism, change 
 with a leaven of the past. It has hastened slowly — 
 with the patience of the insect toilers of the sea, which 
 consume ages in building the coral islands — it has 
 spent a thousand years in developing the principles 
 and perfecting the measures upon which free govern- 
 ment rests. Its advance has been regular and steady — 
 
[ 15 ] 
 
 sometimes cautious and tentative, marked by retreats, 
 but by no deliberate counter-marches. 
 
 This average opinion, this common sense of the peo- 
 ple of England, is largely the result of the thought and 
 feelings of the country people, the agriculturists and 
 freeholders. 
 
 There is another reason of great moment, which de- 
 mands a larger infusion of agriculturists in public af- 
 fairs. A majority of the population of the State con- 
 sists, now, and is likely to consist for many years, of a 
 race which has no capacities for self-government. It 
 will be a long time, if ever, when that race shall cease 
 to be a powerful factor in public affairs. 
 
 How this race, free as they are to pursue such politi- 
 cal methods as they choose, or may be chosen for them, 
 is to be prevented from adopting such courses as will 
 bar progress and check prosperity, is a problem which 
 we must solve, if solution be possible. It can’t be 
 solved by education alone, for self-government is not a 
 science to be taught. The Germans are the best edu- 
 cated people on earth. Theie is no human learning in 
 which they are not skilled ; nothing knowable, which 
 their savants have not mastered, yet with all their 
 genius and learning, with all their aspirations for hu- 
 manity, with their parliaments elected by the people, 
 the Fatherland is but a military camp, its policies dic- 
 tated by one iron will. The French no less endowed 
 and cultivated, after an hundred years of alternate an- 
 archy and despotism, after shedding oceans of blood 
 in the vain attempt at propagandism of republican 
 ideas, after being shorne of their fairest provinces and 
 humiliated by the tramp of hostile armies in their capi- 
 tal, have again essayed free institutions. As yet, the 
 
[ 16 ] 
 
 Republic is an experiment, a hopeful one I admit, but 
 the issue is uncertain. 
 
 On the other hand, the Anglo-Saxons and their de- 
 scendents, now constituting over two hundred millions 
 of English speaking people, possessing one-quarter of 
 the globe as their inheritance — wherever they have lo- 
 cated — in America, in the continent of Australia, in 
 Southern Africa, in the islands of Polynesia, and in 
 whatever stage of progress the settlers on the new lands 
 may have been, have shown their aptitude for free gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 The problem can’t be solved by fraud or force. What- 
 ever methods of revolution may be allowed a people 
 to regain self-government, to expel usurpers, or to drive 
 from unmerited places those who have prostituted the 
 powers of government to the destruction of the Com- 
 monwealth, yet as soon as this end is attained, all 
 methods not sanctioned by law must cease. Poison 
 may be administered as medicine to the sick, but it 
 cannot be made the normal food of the healthy. Anglo- 
 Saxon liberty is a liberty regulated by law. Obedience 
 to law is its soul and animating spirit, and the enforce- 
 ment of law with justice, impartiality, purity and firm- 
 ness against all, however strong, and for the protection 
 of all however weak, is its corner stone, its foundation 
 and support. 
 
 That this people are unfit for self-government is no 
 fault of theirs. Having neither ancestral aptitudes 
 nor acquired capacities for free government, they had 
 thrust upon them powers and duties for which they 
 were wholly unfit. Being recognized “wards” of the 
 nation, they were, whilst in that condition, made “guar- 
 dians” of the most sacred trusts, administrators of the 
 highest duties of humanity. That they should fail, and 
 fail miserably, was inevitable. It deeply concerns us, 
 
[ 17 ] 
 
 that tliis infusion into the body politic, of folly, and vice, 
 and ignorance, of boundless credulity, united with the 
 most inveterate scepticism — of a race which in all past 
 ages has not shown the slightest capacity for free gov- 
 ernment, or even for self-improvement, shall not de- 
 stroy even our own capacity for free institutions. 
 
 This race is in our midst, yet it is non-assimilable 
 with, and unfit for absorption in the Caucassian race. 
 We are two distinct peoples, with ethnological differ- 
 ences in our physical, moral, and intellectual natures 
 of the most pronounced kind. These differences in- 
 clude all race differenced and distinctions now existing 
 on the earth. Each race here is the antipodes of the 
 other. With this race we are to work out our destiny. 
 We are to preserve peace and order, administer justice, 
 and organize and operate governmental forces so 
 as to advance the moral and material interests of the peo- 
 ple. I confess the task appals me. I confess I do not see 
 my way clearly to joining in harmonious and progres- 
 sive acton what God has so clearly sundered. Our duty 
 is to try to work out the problem^ — try earnestly, hope- 
 fully if we may, fairly and honestly, with no ill-will to 
 the associated race, but rather with charity and sym- 
 pathy for them. 
 
 It is not germane to the purpose of this address to 
 suggest political measures to diminish these troubles. 
 But I may properly refer to the part which agricultur- 
 ists may play in working out the problem before us. 
 This race is now, and will always be mainly engaged 
 in agriculture, the tenants and laborers and neighbors 
 of the farmers. 
 
 If this people are ever to be trained to proper meth- 
 ods in politics, if they are ever to become intelligent co- 
 workers with the whites for the public good, it must re- 
 sult from the teaching and example of the farmers of 
 
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[ 18 ] 
 
 the State. That this great work may be done thoroughly, 
 the agriculturists must not only exercise a potential 
 * influence in public affairs, but they must be educated, 
 so that this influence will be as beneficial as it will be 
 powerful. 
 
 Making Agriculture More Attractive. 
 
 Another result to follow the enlarged influence of ag- 
 riculturists and mechanics in public affairs will be 
 that it will counteract, to some extent, the prevailing 
 disposition of the ambitious and progressive young 
 men to avoid these pursuits and embark in those call- 
 ings and professions, in which it is more easy to gratify 
 their aspirations to serve in public life. With the edu- 
 cation and training we propose to give in this Institu- 
 tion, the usefulness of farmers and mechanics in their 
 respective callings will be increased, and at the same 
 time, their capacities for useful and honorable public 
 service will be greatly enlarged, and with this, will 
 come an increase in the attractiveness of these callings. 
 In whatever calling, culture and intellect are /constant, 
 operative forces, and the honorable consideration of 
 mankind is accorded to its followers, will be found an 
 attraction to draw to it the ambitious, the progressive 
 and the capable. 
 
 Moreover, we propose to increase the attractivenesss 
 of country life by teaching easy and cheap methods 
 of making the homes of farmers more attractive and 
 desirable. 
 
 By a little skill in landscape gardening and rustic 
 architecture the beauty of rural homes may be im- 
 mensely increased. It will locate every cottage with 
 reference to the best prospect, surround it with grassy 
 
[ 19 ] 
 
 plots and shady trees, and cover its latticed galleries 
 with vines which are both ornamental and useful. 
 
 Though our summer’s sun may parch and scorch, 
 yet he impregnates both fruits and dowers with a 
 sweeteness and perfume and paints them with a gorge- 
 ousness and splendor and imparts to vegetation a vig- 
 or and perfection unknown to more northern climes. 
 Our farmers must be taught to use the suns beneficient 
 powers to counteract his baleful effects; and more, to 
 create by intelligent work a large surplus of good, to 
 beautify and adorn our land, to make it rich and pros- 
 perous and our people great and happy. 
 
 I do not belive that men degenerate in our Southern 
 clime. They may be less energetic, less persistent 
 and hopeful after failures and reverses, less disposed 
 to sacrifice physical comforts to attain merely material 
 ends, more apathetic, more prodigal, more passionate, 
 than the inhabitants of higher latitudes, yet there has 
 been no great occasion in our history when the gran- 
 der capacities of humanity were called into action, 
 that this call has been made in vain. That we have 
 not advanced materially, equally with the Northern 
 section of the Union, has been in a great degree (I am 
 going to say what some will not like to hear) owing to 
 African slavery, the introduction in our midst of an infe- 
 rior race to whom manual labor in the main was alloted, 
 and the consequent repulsion from our land of the more 
 energetic and progressive races of mankind. 
 
 Labor in the College as a Help to Education. 
 
 In making manual labor a part of the educational 
 system of this institution, we have not overlooked the 
 fact that by it the means of the poor to attend will be 
 increased. Our purpose is to make his labor useful as 
 
[ 20 ] 
 
 well as educational, so tliat it will pay nearly all the 
 expenses of the pupils. 
 
 Its Military Drill. 
 
 Another feature of the College will be the military 
 drill. We propose to teach military tactics to the ex- 
 tent that our graduates may serve the country in war 
 with efficiency and honor. A large standing army is 
 contrary to the genius of a free government. The 
 main reliance of the country for defense in war, must 
 ever be its citizen soldiers. 
 
 The Difficulties in the Way. 
 
 I said in the outset that I proposed to tell you of 
 some of the difficulties in the way of the success of 
 this institution. In the first place, to put it in success- 
 ful operation, will require a considerable amount of 
 money from the public treasury. The people are now 
 overtaxed, and they will be disinclined to increase 
 their burdens, except upon the clearest necessity. I 
 feel the force of this; but still the money must be 
 raised; suitable buildings must be erected; a laborato- 
 ry furnished; live-stock and farming implements pur- 
 chased, and suitable professors and* assistants employ- 
 ed, or the enterprise must be abandoned; and the money 
 we have received from the Nation as an endowment, 
 must be returned. 
 
 I do not think the Legislature will refuse to make 
 the necessary appropriations. I do not think the peo- 
 ple will complain of the burden necessary, in order to 
 furnish medicine to cure the sick body politic, to re- 
 vive the dying industries of the State. Retrenchment 
 and reform in other directions will give the means of 
 putting the Institution into successful operation, and 
 
[ 21 ] 
 
 at the same time allow of a lessening of the public 
 burdens. 
 
 Speaking for the trustees of this Institution, I say 
 we mean not to antagonize any other educational insti- 
 tution in this State, but to co-operate with each and all 
 of them. We shall enter into no rivalry with them, 
 except in the generous competition to do good. 
 
 To the State University we extend the right hand of 
 fellowship, recognizing in her a joint agency of the 
 State with this College to educate her children. Though 
 the paths of the two institutions may be different, 
 their destination is the same — the public good. 
 
 All we ask for this Institution is equality and justice. 
 
 We do not expect this to be denied. 
 
 We want a fair opportunity to open the doors of the 
 store-hoijse of literature and science to the industrial 
 and laboring classes of our population. We want to 
 alleviate their labors by uniting them with an intelli- 
 gent conception of a wise adaptation of means to ends, 
 and infusing into dull and monotonous muscular exer- 
 tion, the spirit and soul of a directing intelligence. 
 We want to increase the usefulness and influence in 
 life of the industrial classes, by increasing their ca- 
 pacities to do the work of the world. He want to 
 augment the the store of happiness and comfort of 
 those who do the world’s most repulsive yet most 
 needed work. 
 
 Another difficulty to be surmounted, is the procur- 
 ing: of one or two of the Professors for this institution. 
 We shall have difficulty in getting a teacher of agri- 
 culture, who is both scientific and practical. If we ap- 
 ply to the graduates of some of the Agricultural Col- 
 leges already established, we will find them probably 
 ignorant of the cultivation of the staple crops which 
 we raise. AW hope to bridge over this difficulty by 
 
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 employing a scientific as well as a practical agricultu- 
 rist, and by the joint action of the two, supply the 
 place of one skilled in both the science and practice of 
 agriculture. 
 
 There will be another difficulty in our progress. The 
 public will expect results too speedily. In Mississippi 
 we have been in the habit of growing only annual 
 crops, reaping at the end, all that we have sown in the 
 beginning of the year — embarking only in enterprises 
 which make immediate returns. This habit will beget 
 an impatience for immediate results. It will be four 
 years before we can send out a graduate. So we be- 
 speak patience. The Trustees will do all in their power 
 to make the Institution useful and prosperous. It is a 
 new enterprise. To some extent our efforts will be ex- 
 perimental ; but we will proceed cautiously, and with 
 all the information we can get, derived from an enquiry 
 into, and examination of other similar Institutions, 
 now established in nearly all the States of the Union. 
 
 And now we have seen some of the ends we propose 
 to attain, and some of the difficulties to be surmounted. 
 
 The ends are noble ; the difficulties not insuperable. 
 To attain these ends and to overcome these difficulties, 
 we appeal to all patriotic Mississippians for sympathy 
 and aid. We invite calm, dispassionate and intelligent 
 discussion and criticism of our work — friendly sugges- 
 tions to aid us to walk aright in the difficult path we 
 must tread. We bespeak patience in awaiting for re- 
 sults. And above all, we beg the. hearty co-operation 
 of all good men and women, all who take a pride in the 
 advancement and prosperity of the State, in this effort 
 to make labor more efficient and less repulsive, to 
 lighten the burdens, and increase the enjoyments of the 
 industrial classes of the State.