CL A\?.8K SUPPLEMENT The IDaine Bulletin Entered at the Post Office at Orono as second-class matter Vol, VII University of Maine, Orono, October, 1904 No, 2 Dedication of Holmes Hall Contents Historical Sketch of Experiment Station 3 Description of Holmes Hall 4 Account of Dedicatory Exercises 5 Address of Hon. A. W. Gilman 5 Address of Hon. S. L. Boardman ... 8 I Illustrations Dr. Ezekiel Holmes 2 Experiment Station, 1888 4 Holmes Hall, 1904 20 Dr. Ezekiel Holmes Historical Sketch The Maine Fertilizer Control and Agricultural Experiment Station was established by the Maine legislature of 1885, which appropriated the sum of $5,000 a year for its maintenance. No provision, however, was made for a building for its accommoda- tion, so the trustees of the University of Maine offered it quarters, although it was established as an independent institu- tion, and the Board of Managers gladly accepted the offer. A laboratory was provided in Fernald Hall and an office in Wingate Hall — the wooden building, since burned, which stood where the present Wingate Hall is located. This State Station was maintained until the passage by Congress of the Hatch Bill in 1887 placed at the disposal of the University the sum of $15,000 annually for the maintenance of an Agricultural Ex- periment Station, after which it was discontinued. The increase in the funds available for the support of a station permitted a considerable increase in the staff of in- vestigation, and a consequent increase in its work, which made increased laboratory and office facilities imperative. To meet this demand, the trustees of the University decided to erect a new building for the exclusive use of the Station, to be located upon the slight elevation to the east of Coburn Hall, one of the very best sites upon the campus. This building was constructed in 1887 according to plans drawn by Frank E. Kidder, a graduate of the University in the class of 1879. The main building was 39 by 26^/2 feet, two stories in height, with a one-story ell, 20 by 22 feet. It was built of brick with granite trimmings. With further increase in the work of the Station, it became necessary to enlarge the building, and this was done in 1899, by adding a wing to the south side, thus providing much needed space for a food laboratory and the director’s office. In the latter is placed the greater part of the station library of about 1,700 volumes. 4 Description op Holmes Hall Symmetry was restored to the building in 1903-04 by the erection of a wing on the north side, 22 by 46 feet, which provides recitation rooms for the departments of agriculture, horticulture, and forestry. The second floor may be divided into two rooms or thrown into one by a rolling shutter. At the same time the ell was carried up another story and widened upon the north side to fill in the space between the ell and the new wing, permitting a rearrangement of rooms, so the main building now contains on the first floor the laboratory for the Experiment Station, 1888 analysis of feeds and fertilizers, the nitrogen room, a room for the storage of chemicals, a food laboratory, and offices of the chemists and veterinarian. On the second floor are rooms for the professor of agriculture, the entomologist, the stenographer, a mailing and reading room, and a telephone room. The basement contains the boiler and coal rooms, a kitchen used in connection with nutrition investigations, a calorimeter room, a gas room, and rooms for the grinding and preparation of samples. In the attic are quarters for the janitor, a photo- graphic dark room, and a storage room. The building is heated by steam, lighted by electricity, and furnished with gas. The total cost is somewhat in excess of $18,000. 5 The recent additions gave a dignified building, designed and erected for agricultural investigation and instruction, and it seemed to. the trustees of the University to be eminently fitting that it should bear the name of one whose life had been given to the promotion of these objects, all of whose fruitful years were passed in the State of Maine, especially as the last public appearance of his life was in connection with the fight he was leading to secure the establishment of the University of Maine as an independent institution. Program or the Dedication The dedicatory exercises were held Wednesday, May 25, 1904. During the day the grounds, buildings, and appliances of the College of Agriculture and the Experiment Station were open for inspection. A review of the University Cadet Battalion was held on Alumni Field at 11.00 A. M. The dedicatory exercises proper were held in Alumni Hall at 1.30 P. M. President Fellows presided and spoke briefly of the work of the University along agricultural lines, mentioning by name a large number of alumni who are engaged in agricultural investigation. The other speakers were President Butterfield of the Rhode Island College; Hon. A. W. Gilman, Com- missioner of Agriculture, and Hon. S. L. Boardman, a former Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture and in his early years a business associate and personal friend of Dr. Holmes. The addresses of Mr. Gilman and Mr. Boardman merit publication by the University in such shape as will give them a wide distribution among its alumni and throughout the State. Address oe Hon. A. W. Gieman “Holmes Hall commemorates a distinct step forward in the relation of the State to the education of the farmers, and in its present purpose voices anew Maine’s purpose to educate for their calling those engaged in her foundation industry, and is a visible evidence of her faith in agricultural education. “It is eminently fitting that the trustees and faculty of this institution should perpetuate the name of Maine’s great distin- guished and first secretary of the Board of Agriculture. “If there has been any irresolution or any uncertainty in the past as to the attitude of the State toward the higher technical education of her farmers it has passed, and Maine stands irrev- 6 ocably pledged to the purposes of the founders of these institu- tions. “This fixed purpose will ere long dispel open hostilities, the least dangerous of its opposing forces, and eventually destroy those more insidious foes who, whether from within or without, disparage the purposes of its founders and seek under one guise or another to divert it from its true and high destiny. “What were the aims of its founders ? Congress in providing for these colleges said in the act that gave them life, — ‘The leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts in such manner as the legislature of the State may prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life/ “The debate in Congress showed that the main aim was in accordance with the opening words, and that a greater breadth was given by amendments to assist the states that were de- ficient in the number of schools that offered the advantages of a higher education. New England had no such necessities. Years after, the appropriation of $25,000 annually for agricul- tural colleges was made more limited in scope, as some states abused the law. The language specifically limits by the word ‘only’ the use of these new funds, saying ‘to be applied only to instruction in agriculture, the mechanic arts, the English language and the various branches of mathematical, physical, natural and economic science, with special reference to their applications to the industries of life and to the facilities for such instruction/ There is very little provided for in this act not essential to an agricultural course. “Since the passage of these acts of Congress there has been a growing perception of the profound relation of agricultural education to the higher interests of society and a rising tide of public conviction that the leading objects of these colleges were named in their true order, agriculture being first as it is first in importance. At the present time agriculture in Maine does not occupy a field of less importance than that attached to it by Congress for the whole country. Our State occupies a splendid and beautiful domain, being greater in area than the rest of 7 New England and greater still in agricultural possibility, even rivaling the agricultural states of the West in its possibilities and exceeding them in its opportunities. Her picturesque hills and valleys, her stimulating climate, her well-watered surface, her resourceful and abiding soil, situated in the midst of the varied arts that have builded splendid markets, will make and hold for Maine agriculture a very high and honorable position. “The annual products of Maine farms are valued at $37,113,- 469, and this does not include millions more in the use of homes and sundry farm resources. Her farms, cattle and machinery are valued at $122,410,904, represented by 59,294 farms. “History informs us that between the educated and uneducated states of the nation and between the educated and uneducated countries of Europe there is a variation of more than 100 per cent in the yield of crops. A change of five per cent in the yield of our crops means a gain annually of nearly $2,000,000. “We expect this College to determine the character and lift the level of all other agricultural educational forces. It is con- ceivable that the influence of this College inspired by agricul- tural education and zeal may lift the returns eventually to far higher results, and do more for the wealth and culture of the State than any other force. It touches the principal source of wealth. “For the present, at least, the greatest good that this institu- tion will or can do will not consist in the facts that it imparts but in the purpose that it infuses into the souls of its students. “It was this unbounded faith that the leadership of the Minne- sota state farms school had in agriculture that placed over 7,000 students in her agricultural halls, and in Wisconsin a like spirit has rolled up thousands. The opinion now prevails among the best of educators that agriculture, dealing as it does with the fundamental forces of nature, is at once the most interesting and the profoundest of industrial, professional and intellectual problems. The agriculturalist must deal with the forces of nature, with men in trade and labor, with machinery in its most varied form working in the most difficult conditions, while he is called upon for the mental faculties to handle these forces, and for a variety of bodily energy that develops him as none other can. 8 “Farming gives needed repose essential to a sane life, while tending to develop the best that is in a man. I know of no spot more inviting than our own dear Pine Tree State for youths about to enter life’s field of action. Our soil yields readily to high skill, and invites it. I congratulate this Faculty in having behind it such an agricultural state and constituency both able and willing to supply every legitimate need of the institution. “If I have not spoken so much in praise of the other courses of study in this College it is not from lack of loyalty to the Uni- versity. I yield to no one in my zeal for its highest interests. If I have manifested a special interest in the agricultural feature it is because I believe most sincerely that Maine’s highest inter- ests are involved in making this department as strong and use- ful as it is possible. I speak not for rural Maine but for the interests of all. There is no veiled hostility to other industries not otherwise educationally provided for. But this, our only agricultural school in the state, with agricultural possibilities beyond our dreams, should be, as no doubt it is intended that it shall be, in full keeping with the organic law founding it and the highest interests of the State. “The normal school just established by the present legislature, in as desirable an agricultural district as any in this Union, will not, in my judgment, do its fullest duty to the State until it establishes an agricultural course ; the State thus educating teachers to teach elementary agriculture in its rural schools. “I venture the assertion that this University, associated ' with proper agricultural environment, will not be wanting in necessary State appropriatons to further advance the work of education.” Address of Hon. S. L. Boardman “Looking at this audience, Mr. President and gentlemen, I infer that he in whose honor we meet today and to whose memory this beautiful and appropriate building is to be dedi- cated, is to most of you only a name. To a few he may possibly be a memory. In the passage of more than a genera- tion so many changes occur that it is likely but one or two here recall his form and appearance. To all others he is unknown. Ask any one of the 539 undergraduates of your University, Mr. President, “Who was Ezekiel Holmes?” and the answer 9 would probably be, “I do not know.” And yet, had he not lived and wrought, had he not contended for you who are now here, before the creative legal body of the State — the legislature of Maine — while your fathers were yet boys or were unborn, this splendid University with its faculty of 65 professors and instructors ; with its more than 30 buildings appropriated to university uses, with their libraries, collections, museums, laboratories, apparatus and equipment, and with an alumni numbering 858 educated people, scores of whom are in important positions of influence and responsibility all over the country and in other lands — all these would not have been. Your University would have been an indifferent annex to a larger and dominating college. The “new learning,” of which your institution has been so long a most efficient ex- ponent, would have made little progress when directed and guided by the spirit of the old scholastic colleges, bound to the educational traditions of centuries. The few special students it would have had, those taking the distinctive courses which now make your curriculum, would always have been in social conflict with the superior tone of those wedded to the old methods and pursuing the more dignified, more exclusive and more useless courses of the classical college. “Long before the White and Goddard farms had been given by the towns of Orono and Old Town, for the site of this University, he of whom we are to learn something today, was your friend. Before one brick had been laid upon another of the many beautiful structures which now adorn your campus, he had made these buildings possible. You have here your Coburn, your Fernald, your Oak and your Wingate halls — names that will perpetuate to coming time the splendid services of the benefactors of your University. It is well. I would not oblit- erate a single letter from the facade of any one of these buildings. The friends of this institution whose names they bear well earned the honor and deserve the distinction. That plain man of the people, who, without ordinary schooling became a millionaire and governor of Maine, who held this institution close to his heart, worked for it, loved it and bequeathed to it the magnificent endowment of $100,000 — Abner Coburn; that wise and conservative legislator and publicist, a man of sterling char- acter and abounding integrity, for years one of the careful, 10 prudent trustees of this University, Lyndon Oak ; that sagacious man of affairs who devoted years to the upbuilding of this insti- tution during the early and dark days of its history, who was for years the president of its board of trustees and did more work than any other official in superintending the erection of many of your buildings, William P. Wingate, and that man who has the honor of being the first president of its faculty and who was for years almost its entire faculty, the only one of those mentioned who has lived to see the present noble position of the University of Maine, Merritt C. Fernald — these men are all those of the original faith, the foundation disciples of the new educa- tion and their names should ever be held in high honor in the annals of your University. Nor should I omit from this list of your benefactors that name which one of your new buildings, not yet completed, is to bear in honor of a gentleman who has long been your loyal friend and for many years as now, the efficient president of your board of trustees — Henry Lord. “It is a splendid thing, Mr. President and gentlemen, for a man to receive recognition. Yet how often, in the affairs of this world, the recognition is so tardy in its coming. Seldom in one’s lifetime does a man who has done noble deeds or per- formed worthy service receive the full measure of a just recognition. It is generally from a succeeding age, from a gen- eration that knew him not, that the philanthropist and bene- factor of his kind must win the fame that is his rightful inherit- ance. Had Ezekiel Holmes received the recognition that was his due, the first building erected upon this campus would have borne his name ; his birthday anniversary would have been observed each year by your official boards and his memory honored in some manner of just acknowledgment by your undergraduates. As it is, all living in Maine today who knew him, will rejoice that at last he who was the real founder of this University in its own grand individuality has been rediscovered, or in the modern phrase, has arrived. “Ezekiel Holmes came of a splendid ancestry of the Puritan commonwealth. He was born in Kingston, Mass., Aug. 21, t8oi. He entered Brown university when only 17 years of age, graduating in 1821, and from the medical school of Bowdoin college in 1824. He died at Winthrop, Feb. 9, 1865. II “I am not to weafy you, my friends, with the long array of facts in his life between these intervening dates. These belong to his biography which will sometime be written, while today I am only to speak of an interesting incident in his life — that relating more especially to the founding of your University. But in passing them I ask you to consider for a moment the work he accomplished in that life of 40 years ; what a range of subjects investigated and discussed, what a mastery of the nat- ural sciences, what a devotion to the best interests of the people of Maine. For five years a professor of agriculture and natural history of the Gardiner Lyceum, the first agricul- tural school in all North America, established 40 years before the Morrill land grant bill made possible the founding of this University; for four years professor of natural history and director of the workshops in Waterville College; founder and first secretary of the Maine Board of Agriculture ; founder and first secretary of the State Agricultural Society ; the first person to explore and report upon the physical features and resources of our now magnificent county of Aroostook which he did so early as 1838, recommending at that time that the State establish an experimental farm upon the fertile soil of the Aroostook river valley ; for six years a representative and for two years a sen- ator in the legislature of Maine; twice nominated as governor of the State on the Liberty or Anti-Slavery party ticket (the cradle-party of the great Republican organization) at a time when it counted against a man most heavily in social standing and popular support to accept the position of its standard-bearer ; chief and naturalist of the scientific survey of Maine ; for nearly 33 years editor of the Maine Farmer; lecturer before lyceums and public gatherings of farmers, without number, before the days of our present farmers’ institutes ; author of many books and scientific treatises and for many years a practicing physician, visiting the sick at all hours of the day and night, ‘without money and without price.’ Complete this outline, Mr. Presi- dent and gentlemen, fill in the years of constant application, the details of thought and study, the wonderful results achieved for our agriculture and for the good of our State and you will have some conception of the life-work of the man whose name you bestow upon this building today. 12 “I have often wondered, Mr. President and gentlemen, what would have been the condition of the agriculture of Maine and of its slow and imperfect development, had it not been for Ezekiel Holmes. That he came to Maine, married a Maine girl and settled here for his home and his lifework, may be regarded as one of the best things that ever took place in the industrial history of the State. To be sure, it may have been that some other man might have appeared, 80 years ago, who would have been the leader of the farmers of that day and guided them through a great deal of ignorance, some supersti- tion, and much prejudice against book-learning, to the realms of a future period in their history bright with the illumination of science ; but whom he could have been, the list of the greatest names among them, as we recall them upon the pages of our agricultural record, fails to disclose. There were remarkable men in the locality in which Ezekiel Holmes made his residence; men in advance of their day in intelligence and foresight regarding our agricultural progress. Among the great names of that period were those of Benjamin Vaughan, the friend and correspondent of Franklin, and of his brother, Charles Vaughan; Sylvester Gardiner; Robert Hallowell Gardiner; Benjamin Hale; the brothers, Samuel and Elijah Wood; Sanford Howard, afterward editor of the American Cultivator ; Henry Dearborn ; Payne Wingate ; Richard H. Green, and Jesse Robinson. One was their leader, the first in all plans for an intelligent agriculture in Maine, Ezekiel Holmes. “The first agricultural school in the new world, the Gardiner Lyceum, established by the legislature of Maine the very year after it became a state and of whose faculty Ezekiel Holmes was for five years a member, had for its object — I read from its petition to the legislature — ‘To give mechanics and farmers such a scientific education as will enable them to become skilled in their professions.’ The language of the Morrill act of 1862, in regard to the objects of your University is that ‘without excluding other scientific and classical studies * * * it shall teach such branches of learning as are related to agricul- ture and the mechanic arts.’ Is not the earlier a better statement than the latter of what this College of Agrculture of your University was founded to accomplish — a formula 13 framed by Ezekiel Holmes and of which he was a life-long advocate ? “When there were but two agricultural societies in all North America, one was in the home- town of Dr. Holmes, (the first in all New England), the other in Pennsylvania. The farmers in that town, under his leadership, imported seed wheat from Virginia and from Spain ; published the first treatise ever printed ini New England on sheep husbandry of which he was the author; offered premiums for growing the largest crops and raising the best stock ; encouraged the invention of the first horse-power machine for threshing grain, and established the Maine Farmer, of which for more than 30 years he was the editor, the motto of which ‘Our Home, Our Country and our Brother Man’, his own motto, is its motto today. Dr. Holmes was the first person in Maine to introduce the thoroughbred Shorthorns, the first thoroughbred Cotswold and Southdown sheep and the first thoroughbred Jerseys. Had he done nothing in his whole public life but to have edited the Maine Farmer — holding aloft the torchlight of agricultural progress of the farmers of the State through the formative years of our better and more thorough agricultural methods, his name and memory would deserve to be forever held in grate- ful remembrance. “Dr Holmes was one of the most learned men our State ever had, especially in the scientific and natural history branches of the knowledge of his day. He knew every bird that came to Maine with the opening of the crocuses and departed with the coming of autumn ; he knew every fish whose home was in our rivers, along our sea coast or in the waters of our beautiful lakes; he was well informed in the history and prac- tice of the agriculture of all times and of all countries ; he was familiar with every rock and quarry and mineral which our soil held and was the discoverer of the rare tourmalines and other gems at Mt. Mica in Paris, specimens of which enrich the cabinets of the great museums of continental Europe and have given world-wide fame to our State ; he was a master of comparative anatomy and knew animals and man as few stu- dents of medicine have known them; he knew every plant and wild flower of Maine from the mighty pine of our hills to the hyssop growing in the crannies of the wall ; he knew more of the 14 principles of mechanics and their application to the practices of the farm than any man before him or of his day; he had a wider and more thorough knowledge of our soils, our crops, our agricultural methods than any man we have had among us for three generations; he answered more scientific questions through the columns of his paper and by a large private cor- respondence with people in and out of the State than any one of whom I have any knowledge ; he understood the people of Maine better, got nearer to them in their everyday lives, became more interested in what they were doing and in that in which they were interested than any person of his own time or of our time ; he won their confidence and they trusted him as a leader to a greater degree than they have trusted any other leader who has ever come after him in the special lines with which he was identified. “Throughout his long life, Dr. Holmes was never known to think of himself. He was unselfish and benevolent even to improvidence. He was never self-seeking for any position or for any preferment. He helped those in misfortune, or in want, or when struggling with adversity, to his own injury. With no flour in his house for tomorrow’s loaf, he would give the last dollar in his pocket to a poor widow, a boy struggling for an education, an inventor trying to get recognition for some new patent or for some machine for the improvement of work done by hands. He prescribed for the sick of his town for a lifetime, without pay and never thought of asking a fee for advice or for counsel which, had it been given, would have made him rich. He was a student, all his days, a great reader, an inventor, always devising new means for doing a thing better than by the old way. His leading aim in life was to benefit others rather than self ; to promote the welfare of humanity. The only wealth he possessed was the wealth of a bounteous intellect; a great love for nature ; and a mind rich with the blessings of life for others. He was a sower of seeds that he did not live long enough to behold in full fruitage, if, indeed, he did to know that, in some cases, they had even germinated. The motto on his book-plate was : ‘Prove all things, hold fast that which is good.’ It may well become the motto of those scientific inves- tigators who work in the laboratories of this building. i5 When it became known that the proceeds from the sale of the land-script of 210,000 acres of the public lands would come to this State for the establishment of what was then called an agricultural and industrial college, great interest became cen- tered in the new institution and the public discussion of its character. It was a subject to which Dr Holmes had given great study. He knew it through and through, in all its bear- ings and especially in connection with its relations to our own conditions and the wants of our people. Between the passage of the land-grant act by Congress in 1862 to its final settlement by our state legislature in 1865, Dr. Holmes had, through the columns of his paper, said a great deal to enlighten the people of Maine upon the real importance of the proposed institution. In this way he had succeeded in bringing about a remarkable degree of unanimity in the views both of the agriculturists and the legislators regarding its character. He had always insisted that it should be an independent, separate college, or as he often expressed it, ‘a tub on its own bottom/ At the same time, especially during the last year of its public consideration by the legislature after it had accepted the terms of Congress and before its final disposition at the session of 1865, various attempts had been made, which were urged with great force and pertinacity, towards merging the proposed college either with Bowdoin or Waterville, or of attaching it in some way to one or the other or in part to both. “This plan at one time gained much support. The friends of both Waterville and Bowdoin colleges spared no effort in press- ing their claims before the state legislature. They saw that the money from the land-script, could they secure it, or even could each secure one-half of it, would mean a new lease of life to them and enable them to greatly strengthen their own denomi- national colleges with the members of each religious sect. “To all such attempts Dr. Holmes set his face like a flint. Not only through his paper did he combat their arguments, but again and again did he appear before legislative committees and lay before them his long-considered and carefully matured views upon a subject to which he had not only given deep thought, but which had been taught by practical experience, especially when connected with the Gardiner Lyceum forty years before. i6 “At times it appeared as though the advocates of a union of the new college with one of the already existing colleges would carry their argument with the legislature. They appeared before the committee several times in the early part of the ses- sion of 1865. They made a strong point of the fact that they had already buildings, dormitories, libraries and other equip- ments, and that with slight expense for enlargement they could save the State the great expense of erecting new buildings, while they were all ready to take the added classes which a new col- lege could not do for some years to come. Waterville was rep- resented by its president, Dr. James T. Champlain, while Bow- doin appeared through its president, Dr. Leonard Woods and Prof. William Smyth, the eminent mathematician, father of the late Prof. Egbert C. Smyth of Andover, and Dr. Newman Smyth of New Haven. There was, indeed, great danger of their success. “At this juncture Dr. Holmes renewed his canvass with doubled force. The friends of the new college and his own personal friends urged him to make the great argument of his life. He entered into the final combat before the committee with all the strength and ability his life had given him. He centered on this one act all his energies. His friends who knew him best knew that he was never so strong as when opposed by a great antagonist or stirred to the height of his eloquence by the presence of some great wrong. On this occasion he deemed that he saw in it the consummation of his desire for the present and the realization of his hopes for the future. He guarded every avenue of approach to the fund given by Congress to the State with jealous care, like an eagle sentinel on some lofty height, and woe to the hands that would divert it from its legitimate purpose or clutch the prize for their own ! The final hearing had been fixed for February 2, 1865. The plea of Bowdoin’s men had been logically stated, their claims set up, its advantages fully formulated and left with the committee. It came the moment for Ezekiel Holmes to reply. As he arose to speak his eyebrows knit, his lips contracted. In an analysis of the whole subject, clear and luminous as his own thought, he showed what he deemed would be a gross injustice to the industrial classes of Maine if the National gift was diverted from its original purpose; if the State should vote to connect i7 the proposed college with any existing institution; if the clear purpose of the act of Congress could not be carried out to the letter: ‘One college, the leading purpose of which should be the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes/ Warming with his subject, his countenance all aglow with the eloquence of his soul, his eye lighted with a view of the present and with visions of the multitudes, reaching far into the future, of those who should seek your doors, whose champion he now was, he drew himself up to his fullest stature, his whole frame quivering with emotion, and throwing back his head with the right arm extended, he said : ‘And now I say to you, Mr. Chair- man, that the farmers of Maine, after having desired this opportunity for their advancement so long, and hoped for it so long, and prayed for it so long, and waited for it so long do not intend to sell their birthright for a mess of pottage/ “Mr. President and gentlemen, I see him now as I saw him then, addressing that committee in Representative Hall in the State House — the hall crowded upon every inch of its floors and its galleries ; and I hear the sound of those cheers to the echo which followed his closing words — the recollection of which will remain a vivid picture while time and reason last. The scene was historic and worthy a painting by some master hand which should hang upon your walls forever. “That was his last act. It was the last time his voice was ever heard or his person seen in public. In just one week he had joined the inhabitants of that eternal city beyond our sight, whose builder and maker is God. “That is why the University of Maine exists today as an inde- pendent institution and not as some dwarfed, feeble, disjointed annex to an old scholastic college. Do you not think it time that your trustees recognize the services of such a man? Do you think I over-eulogize this friend of your University, when I call him its real founder? “It was a dark period for the friends of this institution and for its future when Ezekiel Holmes died. The legislature, to be sure, had decided that the college to be founded should be a new one in accordance with the act of Congress making the endowment. So much had been gained. That long contest would not have to be repeated. He to whom its friends had looked, however, to organize the institution, to define its scope, i8 to mark out its course, to arrange its studies, who knew the whole subject better than any man in Maine — he had been taken from among them. They had followed him in this great scheme for the liberal and scientific education of the masses because he comprehended the problem better than themselves. They did not know where he was to land them in its develop- ment, but they had learned to trust him from long experience. They knew in whatsoever plan he had it was only for the wel- fare of the people — that no personal end was to be gratified and no selfish advantage obtained. In the past they had followed him under similar conditions, blindly to themselves because he was guided by a light of which they knew not. So they believed it was in this case and that the result would be all they desired. P'ortunately his outline of the college had been so well given in his speeches and in the published articles in his paper, that the original and succeeding boards of trustees, by carrying out his plan, builded for this University in its early days better than they knew. “Dr. Holmes’s death was announced in the legislature, resolu- tions adopted and an eulogy spoken by Hon. John L. Stevens. Later resolutions were adopted by the Board of Agriculture and an eulogy pronounced in Representatives’ Hall by Senator French. Leading journals of the country spoke of his decease with sentiments of the highest respect for his character. Secre- tary Goodale said of him : ‘We owe a debt of gratitude to our late beloved friend. The good seed so liberally scattered by his unselfish hand is not lost. It has borne fruit — it shall yet bear fuller harvests. While his ashes rest in peace let us hope that his highest aspirations, which were ever more for others than for himself or for his own may be fully realized.’ Senator French in closing his eulogy said: ‘The unfinished temple of knowledge rises before you; the people stand on its broad platform. Build it as he builded, till its pillared dome shall pierce the clouds and everlasting sunlight play around its summit. And when the teeming multitudes yet to be shall crowd its courts to worship at its shrine, they shall see written on a fair stone, conspicuous among earth’s honored and illustrious ones, whose fame covers its walls within and without, from foundation course to topmost stone the name of Ezekiel Holmes.’ i9 “In the pretty village cemetery of Winthrop, within sight of where he spent his life, stands a monument erected through the benevolence of his townsmen and his friends, on which is inscribed : Dr. Ezekiel Holmes, A. M., the founder of agricul- tural science in Maine; died in peace, Feb. 9, 1865, aged 64 years. His motto was : Our Home, Our Country, and Our Brother Man. “Mr. President and gentlemen, trustees : I present to this University, in behalf of Mrs. Sarah Benson Holmes, a portrait of Dr. Ezekiel Holmes at the age of 31 years.”