College of Agriculture, University of Illinois. 
 
ADDRESSES 
 
 DEDICATION 
 
 AGRICULTURAL BUILDING 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 MAA" 21, 1901 
 
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 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Aiternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/addressesdedicatOOuniv 
 
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 ADDRESS 
 
 S. Noble King, Blooming-ton. 
 
 Chairman of Legislative Committee of Illinois Farmers’ Institute, 1899, offi- 
 cially representing the farmers of the State in the third campaign for an 
 
 Agricultural Building. 
 
 Just fifty years ag-o, at the first farmers’ convention held in 
 Illinois, the seed was planted whose fruitag-e we behold in the 
 beautiful building- which we are now assembled to dedicate. 
 
 This convention was held at Granville, Putnam county, and 
 was called, “To take into consideration such measures as mig-ht 
 be deemed most expedient to further the interests of the ag-ricul- 
 tural community, and particularly to take steps toward the estab- 
 lishment of an Agricultural University.” Among the resolutions 
 introduced by Professor Jonathan B. Turner, of Jacksonville, 
 and passed by the convention were the following : 
 
 Resolved, That we greatly rejoice in the degree of perfection to which our 
 various institutions, for the education of our brethren engaged in professional, 
 scientific, and literary pursuits, have already attained, and in the mental and 
 moral elevation which those institutions have given them, and their conse- 
 quent preparation and capacity for the great duties in the spheres of life in 
 which they are engaged; and that we will aid, in all ways consistent, for the 
 still greater perfection of such institutions. 
 
 Resolved, That as the representatives of the industrial classes, including 
 all cultivators of the soil, artisans, mechanics, and merchants, we desire the 
 same privileges and advantages for ourselves and our posterity in each of our 
 several pursuits and callings as our professional brethren enjoy in theirs, and 
 we admit that it is our own fault that we do not also enjoy them. 
 
 Resolved, That, in our opinion, the institutions originally and primarily 
 designed to meet the wants of the professional classes as such, can not, in the 
 nature of things, meet ours, no more than the institutes we desire to establish 
 for ourselves meet theirs ; therefore. 
 
 Resolved, That we take immediate measures for the establishment of a 
 University in the State of Illinois, expressly to meet those felt wants of each 
 and all the industrial classes of our state. 
 
 At the request of the convention Professor Turner submitted 
 a carefully thought out p Ian for an Industrial University for the 
 State of Illinois. 
 
4 
 
 Limitation of time prevents g-iving- this plan in full, but 
 extracts from it will show that he had a clear and definite under- 
 standing- of the needs of our people. He said, “What do the 
 industrial classes want? How can that want be supplied? 
 
 “ The first question may be answered in few words. They 
 want, and they oug^ht to have, the same facilities for under- 
 standing the true philosophy, the science, and the art of their 
 several pursuits (their life business), and of efficiently applying 
 existing knowledge thereto and widening its domain, which the 
 professional classes have long enjoyed in their pursuits. Their 
 first labor is, therefore, to supply a vacuum from fountains 
 already full, and bring the living waters of knowledge within 
 their reach. Their second is to help fill the fountains with still 
 greater supplies. They desire to depress no institution, no class 
 whatever; they only wish to elevate themselves and their pur- 
 suits to a position in society to which all men acknowledge they 
 are justly entitled, and to which the}" also desire to aspire. How, 
 then, can that want be supplied? 
 
 “ In answering this question I shall endeavor to present, 
 with all possible frankness and clearness, the outline of impres- 
 sions and convictions that have been gradually deepening in my 
 own mind, for the past twenty years, and let them pass for 
 whatever the true friends of the cause may think them worth. 
 I answer first negatively, that this want can not be supplied by 
 any of the existing institutions for the professional classes, nor 
 by any incidental appendage attached to them as a mere second- 
 ary department. We need a university for the industrial classes 
 in each of the states, with their consequent subordinate insti- 
 tutes and high schools in each of the counties and towns. The 
 object of these institutes should be to apply existing knowledge 
 directly and efficiently to all practical pursuits and professions 
 in life, and to extend the boundaries of our present knowledge 
 in all possible practical directions.” 
 
 Foreseeing the changes that would occur in agricultural 
 methods, he went on to say: 
 
 “There should be connected with such an institution, in 
 this state, a sufficient quantity of land of variable soils and 
 aspect, for all its needful annual experiments and processes in 
 the great interests of agriculture and horticulture. Buildings 
 of appropriate size and construction for all its ordinary and 
 
5 
 
 special uses; a complete philosophical, chemical, anatomical, and 
 industrial apparatus; a g-eneral cabinet, embracing- everything- 
 that relates to, illustrates, or facilitates any one of the indus- 
 trial arts. To facilitate the increase and practical application 
 and diffusion of knowledge, the professors should conduct, each 
 in his own department, a continual series of annual experiments. 
 Let the professors of physiology and entomology be ever abroad 
 at the proper seasons, with the needful apparatus for seeing 
 all things visible and invisible, and scrutinizing the latent 
 causes of all those blights, blasts, rots, rusts, and mildews 
 which so often destroy the choicest products of industry, and 
 thereby impair health, wealth, and comfort of millions of our 
 fellow-men. Let the professor of chemistry carefully analyze 
 the various soils and products of the state, retain specimens, 
 give instructions, and report on their various qualities, adapta- 
 tions, and deficiencies. Let similar experiments be made in all 
 other interests of agriculture and mechanic or chemical art. 
 It is believed by many intelligent men that from one-third to 
 one-half the annual products of this state are annually lost from 
 ignorance on the above topics. And it can scarcely be doubted 
 that in a few years the entire cost of the whole institution would 
 be annually saved to the state in the above interests alone, aside 
 from all its other benefits, intellectual, moral, social, and pecu- 
 niary.” 
 
 Realizing the deficiency of available information on these 
 subjects, he added: “I should have said, also, that a suitable 
 industrial library should be at once procured, did not all the 
 world know such a thing to be impossible, and that one of the 
 first and most important duties of the professors of such insti- 
 tutions will be to begin to create, at this late hour, a proper 
 practical literature and series of text books for the industrial 
 classes. 
 
 “As regards the professors, they should, of course, not only 
 be men of the most eminent, practical ability in their several 
 departments, but their connection with the institution should 
 be rendered so fixed and stable as to enable them to carry 
 through such designs as they may form, or all the peculiar bene- 
 fits of the system would be lost.” 
 
 That he spoke as a prophet is shown by the following quo- 
 tation: “As matters now are, the world has never adopted any 
 
6 
 
 efficient means for the application and diffusion of even the 
 practical knowledge which does exist. True, we have fairly 
 got the primer, the spelling book, and the newspaper abroad 
 in the world, and we think that we have done wonders; and so, 
 comparatively, we have. But if this is a wonder, there are still 
 not only wonders, but, to most minds, inconceivable miracles, 
 from new and unknown worlds of light, soon to break forth 
 upon the industrial mind of the world. 
 
 “Here, then, is a general though very incomplete outline of 
 what such an institution should endeavor to become. Let the 
 reader contemplate it as it will appear when generations have 
 perfected it, in all its magnificence and glory; in its means of 
 good to man, to all men of all classes; in its power to evolve 
 and diffuse practical knowledge and skill, true taste, love of 
 industry, and sound morality, not only through its apparatus, 
 experiments, instruction, annual lectures, and reports, but 
 through its thousands of graduates, in every pursuit of life, 
 teaching and lecturing in all our towns and villages, and then 
 let him seriously ask himself: Is not such an object worthy of 
 at least an effort, and worthy of a state which God himself, in 
 the very act of creation, designed to be the first agricultural 
 and commercial state on the face of the globe? 
 
 “Who should set the world so glorious an example of edu- 
 cating their sons worthily of their heritage, their duty, and 
 their destiny, if not the people of such a state? In our country 
 we have no aristocracy, with the inalienable wealth of ages, and 
 constant leisure and means to perform all manner of useful exper- 
 iments for their own amusement; but we must create our 
 nobility for this purpose, as we elect our rulers, from our own 
 ranks, to aid and serve, not to domineer over and control us. 
 And this done, we will not only beat England, and beat the 
 world in yachts and locks and reapers, but in all else that con- 
 tributes to the well being and true glory of man. I maintain 
 that, if every farmer’s and mechanic’s son in this state could 
 now visit such an institution but for a single day in the year, 
 it would do him more good in arousing and directing the dor- 
 mant energies of mind than all the cost incurred, and far more 
 good than many a six months of professed study of things he 
 never needs and never wants to know.” 
 
 The effort of this convention resulted in the land grant act 
 
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 of 1862, which provided — “ That there should be granted to each 
 state 30,000 acres of government land for every senator and 
 representative to which it was entitled according to the census 
 of 1860.” 
 
 Among the conditions were the following: 
 
 “ These colleges were for the henejit of agriculture and the 
 niechanic arts. The object of it all was to promote the liberal 
 and practical education of the industrial classes. And in 1868 
 Illinois established its college, under the name of the Illinois 
 Industrial University.” 
 
 Founding 
 
 While no difficulty was experienced in securing teachers for 
 scientific and classical courses it was found almost impossible to 
 find teachers or literature for the agricultural department. 
 Principles of agricultural science, familiar now to every pro- 
 gressive farmer, were at that time undiscovered. Under these 
 conditions the college of agriculture had a precarious existence. 
 
 After a struggle of twenty-one years relief came through an 
 act of Congress— commonly called the Hatch Act — by which 
 $15,000 was appropriated to each of the states to establish 
 “Agricultural Experiment Stations,” under the direction of the 
 College of Agriculture. 
 
 A second measure of relief was found in another act of Con- 
 gress by which an appropriation was made for the further endow- 
 ment and support of the colleges of agriculture and mechanic 
 arts. It was generally supposed that the agricultural college 
 of Illinois was then on a basis that would make it a credit to 
 the state, but when in February, 1898, the Illinois Farmers’ 
 Institute held its annual meeting at the University, to the sur- 
 prise and disappointment of the farmers present it was found 
 that the buildings belonging to the agricultural college con- 
 sisted of three wooden barns. The necessity of having a depart- 
 ment in our State University in which the sons of farmers, or 
 those wishing to fit themselves for agricultural pursuits, could 
 have the advantage of scientific instruction equal in every 
 respect to the other departments was recognized, and in the fol- 
 lowing September, at a meeting of the Board of Directors of 
 the Illinois Farmers’ Institute, it was determined to ask the 
 legislature for an appropriation by which the agricultural col- 
 
8 
 
 lege could be placed on a basis fitting to the rank which this 
 state holds in agricultural productions. 
 
 Accordingly a committee from the State Farmers’ Institute 
 asked the legislature for an appropriation of $150,000 for a 
 building for the college of agriculture. This appropriation 
 was readily granted, and we now have the pleasure of seeing 
 the building ready for use. Through the united and persistent 
 efforts of the farmers of Illinois we have, after thirty years, a 
 college of agriculture which we confidently trust will be an 
 honor to this great state. Notwithstanding the fact that the 
 instructors have been handicapped by want of proper facilities 
 and equipment, they have done excellent work, proof of which 
 is found in the fitness of graduates to fill responsible positions; 
 one, Mr. F. D. Gardner, lately having been appointed by the 
 United States government to take charge of the agricultural 
 interests in the island of Porto Rico. 
 
 But we must remember that the equipment and instruction 
 are only helps to students. Success is dependent upon personal 
 effort. 
 
 Already we have been gratified by honors won by students 
 of this college at the inter-collegiate live stock judging contest 
 at Chicago, and we unhesitatingly predict that the winning of 
 the Spoor trophy will be only the beginning of the honors which 
 shall be accorded to students of the Illinois College of Agri- 
 culture. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 A. P. Grout, Winchester. 
 
 Chairman of Committee from Illinois Agricultural Associations which drafted 
 and secured the passage of the “Rankin Bill,” for the “Further equip- 
 ment of the College of Agriculture and the extension of the work of the 
 Experiment Station.” 
 
 This occasion marks the beg-inning- of a new epoch in the 
 history of ag’riculture in Illinois. It is the dawn of a new era 
 of improvement and advancement in the opportunities and pro- 
 visions made for a hig-her and better education for the people — 
 for the tillers of the soil — that g-reat army of workers who are 
 developing- the greatest of all our industries and who have here- 
 tofore been supposed to do business on a very limited amount of 
 that which is so essential to success in almost every other calling. 
 
 Through the inspiration of this hour, we are encouraged to 
 assert that the “world does move” and as an excuse for such 
 rashness we have but to point to the magnificent new building 
 — this day dedicated to agriculture — to the education of the boys 
 and girls of Illinois in that which pertains to the farm and the 
 business of farming. 
 
 That this great boon to agriculture — the greatest industry 
 of Illinois — has been long delayed and many years over due, 
 cannot be gainsaid, but the delay and anxiety incident to its safe 
 arrival in port, with a goodly cargo in the shape of the finest 
 building devoted to agriculture in the world, and a liberal appro- 
 priation for education and investigations, and a most able and 
 efficient crew of workers and instructors, goes very far towards 
 mitigating our complaints and gives us great hopes and encour- 
 agement for the future. 
 
 Today Illinois is to be congratulated on the advanced posi- 
 tion it has taken with reference to agricultural education and 
 proud may it be of the rank thus obtained. 
 
 Agriculture is the basis of all industry, and education is the 
 foundation upon which the superstructure must be reared to 
 success. 
 
 The eyes of the people have been opened and their under- 
 
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10 
 
 standing- quickened. Their conception of the business of farm- 
 ing has been broadened and expanded and it now means some- 
 thing more than just digging, dropping and covering the seed 
 and gathering the harvest. 
 
 The discovery has been made that farming is a business to 
 be studied and learned and that it needs the trained mind as 
 much as does any profession that places alphabetical endings to 
 the names of graduates from literary or professional schools. 
 
 It has been aptly said that if John is sent to college to take 
 a course in law, medicine or theology, and Tom must farm, that 
 it is only fair and just to Tom that he be given a course in agri- 
 culture and that he receive the same training and have the same 
 advantages for mental discipline and technical information along 
 the line of his life work as his brother. Then will they not 
 only be placed on an equality from a business standpoint but 
 they will be social equals, for it is not mere work that separates 
 men socially it is their mentality. 
 
 Farming in the past has been largely a matter of brawn but 
 today the demand is for more brains. The situation was most 
 aptly stated by Kx-Secretary of Agriculture, J. Sterling Morton 
 when he said that “ the farmer shall succeed more by his head 
 than his hands.’' It is with pleasure that we can here proclaim 
 the fact, and it is a matter of congratulation for the friends of 
 agriculture everywhere, that Illinois has at last awakened to a 
 realization of the situation — has met the demands of the hour, 
 and has made this occasion and these exercises possible, and not 
 only possible but an occasion for gratitude and pride to every 
 farmer and every one interested in the great fundamental indus- 
 try in the grandest agricultural State of the Union. 
 
 The awakening has come and Illinois has gone on record as 
 favoring and seeking the highest and most advanced type of 
 agriculture. 
 
 Less than three years ago Illinois stood far down on the list 
 of States, as regards her college of agriculture — almost at the 
 foot of the class — its instructors discouraged and disheartened — 
 its friends and promoters disappointed and chagrined — its bene- 
 ficiaries given over to ridicule and skepticism — its management 
 doubtful as to the utility of its objects and uncertain and out of 
 date as to its value and importance as an educational factor — a 
 college in name only — sick unto death — a fit subject for resur- 
 
11 
 
 rection and new life, when the people, the farmers — represented 
 by the Illinois Farmers Institute, came to the rescue, took up 
 the fig-ht and carried on the strug-g-le that has ended in the finest 
 building- devoted to ag-riculture in the world and an ag-ricultural 
 colleg-e with more students enrolled during- the present year than 
 in all of the previous years of its history combined. 
 
 Having- put hand to the plow, for the advancement of agri- 
 cultural education and the building up of a college and experiment 
 station that shall be a credit and an honor, as well as a perpet- 
 ual benefit to the State, there has been no ^turning back, but the 
 past winter has witnessed the development of a new and hereto- 
 fore unknown power for the promotion of public utility, in the 
 concerted and harmonious action of the various agricultural organ- 
 izations of the State. The Illinois Live Stock Breeders’ Associ- 
 ation — the Corn Growers — Corn Breeders and Grain Dealers 
 Associations — The Illinois Farmers’ Institute — the Horticultural 
 Society — the Dairymen’s and Sugar Beet Growers’ Associations — 
 representing the bone and sinews of the land — the wealth and 
 taxpayers of the State — the solid substantial men — the veritable 
 salt of the earth, united and determined in the promotion of such 
 measures as shall benefit the people and add wealth to the State, 
 is a power that cannot be resisted or turned down. 
 
 The times are propitious for the exercise of such a power. 
 The people are sick at heart and nauseated with the babblings 
 of would be politicians and statesmen and the constant parading 
 of the great bugbear economy — not for economy’s sake but for 
 party’s sake, when increased educational advantages and indus- 
 trial knowledge and investigations for the benefit of the people 
 are demanded. 
 
 The time was when the pioneer friends of agriculture enter- 
 tained great hopes for the building up of a great industrial institu- 
 tion of learning in Illinois, in which instruction in agriculture 
 and kindred topics should be made as prominent as the superior 
 agricultural advantages of the State demanded. 
 
 They were met with the rebuff, that the people did not want 
 it — that they were not asking for it and would not avail them- 
 selves of any advantages that might be offered, but above all 
 the virtuous politicians and legislators were opposed to taxing 
 the dear people to provide the necessary funds. Cheap reputa- 
 tion for economy, dearly bought at the price of ignorance, irrep- 
 
12 
 
 arable loss of fertility, delayed development and wasted oppor- 
 tunities. Such are some of the conditions that led the various 
 agricultural organizations of the State to unite upon one com- 
 mon plan .and concert of action, and effort, to secure that long 
 delayed recognition for our college of agriculture that shall place 
 it in a position to creditably represent Illinois as an educational 
 institution and successfully carry out the plans and fulfil the 
 hopes of its founders. 
 
 In unity and numbers there is strength. 
 
 The individual farmer acting alone and for himself counts for 
 very little in shaping public affairs, but as a member of an organ- 
 ized body of intelligent and thinking men, seeking only the best 
 interests and welfare of all the people, and no private or per- 
 sonal gain, is in a position to exert a most powerful and salutary 
 influence. 
 
 The agitation of one man or of any number of men not 
 working in harmony can avail little, but when united with 
 one common object and purpose, and backed by numbers, by 
 intelligence, by fixedness of purpose, and by standing as men of 
 affairs, the influence wielded is immense. 
 
 Agriculture has never been accorded the position or received 
 the recognition from our State government that its magnitude 
 and importance entitles it. Our farmers have been slow to assert 
 their rights or push their claims. 
 
 Merit and justice have availed little or naught, against 
 united and organized effort. 
 
 The development of the past few months with reference to 
 the powerful influences that can be exerted for the shaping and 
 controlling of public policy by organizations, even of farmers — 
 hayseeds if you like — is no less important than the objects 
 already accomplished. The latent powers and possibilities of 
 the people have been revealed and the feasibility of their em- 
 ployment demonstrated. 
 
 Through the influence and by the assistance of the agricul- 
 tural organizations, Illinois can today boast of one of the finest 
 — best equipped and most thoroughly up-to-date agricultural 
 colleges and experiment stations in the world, and if there is 
 anything lacking to place them clearly in the lead they have 
 only to make their wants known, for those organizations, that 
 
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 are of the people and for the people, are enlisted in their service 
 and behalf for all time to come. 
 
 The colleg'e of agriculture belongs to the people and more 
 particularly to the farmers of Illinois. It is their special insti- 
 tution of learning and source of inspiration— the place where the 
 future husbandmen are to be disciplined and grounded in the 
 fundamental principles of their calling and fitted for their life 
 work. It is the fountain from which may be derived the latest 
 information in regard to all farm operations — the place for study 
 and investigation of all farm problems and experiments. 
 
 The farmers of Illinois, through their various organizations 
 have assumed the right to say what kind of an institution it 
 shall be, and they have elected to say, that from this time on, 
 it shall fitly represent the agricultural interests of Illinois, which 
 means that it shall be second to no institution of the kind in the 
 land. 
 
 I speak advisedly and know whereof I speak. I am aware 
 that I am making the assertion in the presence of represen- 
 tatives of the best agricultural colleges in the United States, yet 
 I have no hesitancy in saying to them, do your best — and we 
 will go you one better. 
 
 It has taken time to educate the farmers of the State to a 
 just appreciation of the value of an agricultural education and 
 to remove from their minds the old prejudice against book farm- 
 ing or scientific farming or any kind of farming that savors of 
 anything but brawn and muscle — tireless and never ending 
 drudgery, and a reckless waste of soil fertility. 
 
 Again it has been the province and function of the agri- 
 cultural organizations to bring the farmers and the agricultural 
 college into closer communion and to a better understanding of 
 the wants of the one and the benefits of the other. 
 
 Through the agency and by the efforts of these organiza- 
 tions and embodying the ideas and suggestions of Col. Chas. F. 
 Mills as expressed in resolutions introduced by him at the last 
 meeting of the Live Stock Breeders’ Association, it has been 
 provided by statute that the work of the Illinois Experiment 
 Station shall be carried out on lines to be agreed upon by the 
 Dean of the College of Agriculture and committees, represent- 
 ing the various branches of agriculture, to be selected by the 
 
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 farmers themselves. Thus is the work of the colleg'e and station, 
 and the wants of the farmer broug-ht into close and intimate 
 relationship. 
 
 The association of the leading- farmers of the State and 
 those who practice the hig-hest type of ag-riculture, in org-aniza- 
 tions, for the purpose of leading- the farmers of Illinois into 
 better and more intellig-ent method— of inculcating- new ideas — 
 ideas that will set them to thinking- and studying- and which 
 when applied will result in the most advanced agriculture, is an 
 object worthy of the highest commendation. 
 
 The success already achieved and the good accomplished by 
 the agricultural organizations of Illinois acting in perfect har- 
 mony and unanimity of purpose and for the promotion and 
 advancement of agriculture, makes them the pioneers and lead- 
 ers in this work. They have demonstrated the influence and 
 power of the people — even the farmers, when organized for a 
 purpose. They have set the pace for the good work all over the 
 land. They have given an impetus to agriculture that nothing 
 can check or stay. Illinois may have been a little slow in get- 
 ting her machinery in motion, but she is now fully aroused as 
 to her opportunities and possibilities. 
 
 With the best natural advantages of soil, climate, and loca- 
 cation, with the best equipped college of agriculture in the 
 world, backed by the most intelligent and progressive body of 
 farmers in the entire country, thoroughly organized and keenly 
 alive to every move that may effect their interests, Illinois may 
 be expected to forge to the front rank in everything that goes 
 to constitute her material well being and the happiness of her 
 people. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 Hon. Henry M. Duneap, Savoy. 
 
 Member of the Senate from the thirtieth district and in charge of University 
 appropriation bills when the appropriation for the Agricultural Building 
 was secured. 
 
 The University of Illinois, known at that time as the Illi- 
 nois Industrial University first opened its doors to students in 
 1868. In the fall of that year I, a g-reen country boy of fifteen, 
 entered the school in pursuit of an agricultural education. The 
 school, and I believe I am safe in calling- it simply a school even 
 in the presence today of one who was at that time a member of 
 its faculty, consisted of a dozen teachers and ninety students. 
 The equipment was a few books on “How Crops Grow'’ and 
 “Chemistry of Soils.” 
 
 As I drove through the University Campus this morning on 
 my way to this new and g-rand edifice erected for and to be con- 
 secrated to the uses of the College of Agriculture, I could not 
 help but contrast the present with the past. Then, there was 
 the one building which served as a dormitory to house the stu- 
 dent body, a few recitation rooms, a room for Chapel exercises 
 and a room for a library. No equipment for the chemical 
 laboratory, or the engineering and mechanical departments. — 
 The department of science was handsomely furnished with a 
 pair of balances, a microscope of limited power, and a few rocks. 
 How different this morning — the old building to which we have 
 referred has disappeared and in its place is Illinois Field; at the 
 South end of the old campus is Military Hall; as we proceed 
 southward on Burrill Avenue to the right and left are the Elec- 
 trical and Mechanical Engineering shops, the Engineering build- 
 ing proper, the Greenhouses, the President’s house and the 
 Natural History building, the Chemical building which has 
 outlived its usefulness and is to be succeeded by a more modern 
 one, the handsome Library building to the right and what is 
 now known as the oldyl^^.n Hall or building directly in our path: 
 as we circle this latter to the right or left we come into full view 
 of the Experiment Station buildings and barns. Astronomical 
 
 15 
 
16 
 
 observatory and last but by no means least this grand structure 
 which we are here today to dedicate to the uses of Illinois’ agri- 
 culture. In addition to the buildings enumerated each of them 
 is filled with apparatus and equipped for instruction and investi- 
 gation second to none in the United States. 
 
 Now the student body is composed of 1700 students whose 
 opportunity for education before entering the university is almost 
 as far in advance of that of the students of the earlier days 
 as are the advantages now offered by the University superior 
 to those of that time. As my memory reverts to that olden 
 time I recall that student body as an earnest, rather poorly clad, 
 enthusiastic, lively and mischief-loving band of boys from the 
 farm and village. Few were possessed of a high school educa- 
 tion, and many minus even that of a good common school. But 
 they were earnest intelligent and many have made their mark 
 in life since the old college days. This demonstrates to my 
 mind that if a student possesses capacity for an education it 
 matters but little whether he is examined for entrance to the 
 University or not. Previous opportunity has much to do with 
 whether he can leap a pole set at a certain height on the field 
 of mental gymnastics, but it has but little to co with his after- 
 success in University studies. Many good students, eager for 
 knowledge, are frightened aw^ay because of their inability to 
 pass certain requirements of admission set forth in the catalog. 
 Better do away with tests for admission and require more for 
 graduation. 
 
 Domiciled in the old building which answered for all the 
 departments of a great University, we went forth to study agri- 
 culture, “as she was taught.” Daily the student body was 
 assembled, counted off into squads of ten with a leader for each. 
 There with professors to the right of us, professors to the left 
 of us, instructors in front and rear of us, with hoes, rakes, 
 wheelbarrows, baskets, spades, and all sorts of agricultural 
 implements invented to tickle mother earth into bountiful har- 
 vests we went forth to study “ that art which doth mend nature,” 
 for two hours each day. As a member of what the rest of the 
 boys dubbed the “infant squad” I went out daily with the mul- 
 titude and raked in such crumbs of practical agriculture as were 
 scattered in my vicinity by the professors of ancient languages 
 and literature, or mathematics, or the instructor in military 
 
17 
 
 tactics, all of whom were expected to be equally expert in the 
 science of agriculture as taught in those days. Since leaving 
 the institution if I have made any success as a farmer it is due 
 no doubt to the instruction in practical agriculture I received 
 from the professor of literature and art of the best manner in 
 which a hoe should be held in cutting down “Jimpson” weeds. 
 If I have made a success in horticulture it is due to the instruc- 
 tion I received in picking and packing tomatoes on the site of 
 where the Library Building now stands under the instruction 
 of the professor of horticulture, one who from those primitive 
 methods of instruction has advanced to a world-wide reputation 
 as a bacteriologist and to the position of dean of the faculty. 
 Our instruction in the class room consisted in having a chapter 
 in, “ How Crops Grow” read and commented upon by the pro- 
 fessor of agriculture. Wearisome hours were spent in this 
 unprofitable work in reading books whose titles I remember if 
 I have forgotten their contents. Thus it was that agriculture 
 was taught in ‘‘ye” olden time, and the wonder was that agricul- 
 tural education did not prove popular with the student. We 
 can now see that the fault was not with the wonderful truths 
 of nature but with the means and crude methods of their pre- 
 sentation. All of this was but a beginning of a better system 
 of instruction, a groping after better methods which have since 
 taken the place of this mistaken and immature beginning. All 
 of this is not offered in criticism, but as an illustration of what 
 has been accomplished in the past third of a century in the 
 development of agricultural education. Of the instructors of 
 those days be it said that “ they did the best they could,” and 
 the student of that day got the best there was at the time. Some 
 of those instructors have since risen to prominence and occupy 
 foremost positions of honor in the University — and have reputa- 
 tions in their professions that are world-wide. 
 
 Learning and Labor was the watchword then as now and 
 from this humble beginning has come a system of instruction in 
 the class room and field laboratory that has caused the building 
 of this immense structure for carrying forward the cause of agri- 
 cultural education. We welcome the dawn of a better day along 
 this line, more intelligent methods, for investigation and instruc- 
 tion mean better methods in the treatment of our soils, our crops, 
 and our live stock. It means a better home for the farmer, a 
 
18 
 
 higher standing in the social and economic life of the farmer 
 in his association with people engaged in other pursuits. The 
 intelligent farmer of the future will occupy such position as he 
 carves out for himself. The opportunity is his. If he respects 
 himself and his calling others will respect him anjd it. Today 
 we have reached a point where we can see that agriculture at 
 the University of Illinois is what we make it. If it is popular 
 it will be because the instruction is of the best, the instructors 
 enthusiastic in their work and the methods of such a nature as 
 shall interest and instruct intelligent students who “ want to 
 know^’ and want to know by the quickest and best route. From 
 one or two text books you now have many, from one or two 
 instructors you now count them by the dozen, from one room 
 shared with other interests you have developed into an immense 
 building, all your own, equipped with the best apparatus for in- 
 struction in the land. Agricultural education at the University 
 of Illinois has left the past behind and must now press forward 
 to the future. The methods of today while perfect as compared 
 to early beginnings will be cast aside and regarded as obsolete 
 in the near future. We cannot stand still, we must press for- 
 ward for if we do not we go backward. The great agricultural 
 interests of Illinois are watching you. New buildings, better 
 equipments, improved facilities bring new responsibilities. 
 While we have been satisfied in the past with moderate results, 
 or none at all, we now expect great things of you. You must 
 measure up to a new standard and we have faith that you will 
 not be found wanting. If satisfactory results come from money 
 wisely expended there is no doubt but what Illinois will take care 
 of her own. Let it be remembered that there is much truth in 
 the saying from the book of books, ‘‘ To those that have shall 
 be given and from those who have not shall be taken away.” If 
 you succeed, much will be added, if you fail, much that you 
 have will be taken away. 
 
 Agricultural development in the past twenty-five years has 
 come largely through wise legislation. • The establishment by 
 the General Government of State Universities and State Experi- 
 ment Stations throughout the length and breadth of the land 
 and the equipment, by the State, of buildings, apparatus, and 
 means of instruction has done more in the past twenty-five years 
 to bring the science of agriculture to its proper position than is 
 
19 
 
 generally known. Earnest men and women, Stock Breeders’’ 
 Associations, Dairymen’s Associations, Boards of Agriculture, 
 Horticultural Societies, Farmers’ Institutes, Poultry Breeders’ 
 Associations and kindred organizations, are in a great measure 
 due to appropriations made by the legislature of this and other 
 States. All of these organizations made strong by State aid 
 have contributed much in securing proper recognition for agri- 
 culture at the hands of the General Assembly of this State in 
 the erection and equipment of this grand edifice. 
 
 To those in charge of this great work of agricultural edu- 
 cation I wish to extend hearty congratulations, your success in 
 the future will depend upon whether you keep close to the peo- 
 ple interested — to what they need and require — to those things 
 the knowledge of which will make them better farmers and 
 better citizens — to those things that are practical as well as 
 educational. If you will but carry out in good faith the motto 
 of this great University and link “ Learning and Labor” in very 
 truth, you will meet our expectations. Dignify labor with 
 learning and make it intelligent and self-respecting and you 
 will bring about a new era in agriculture which will redound 
 to the good of the state and of the people. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 L. H. Kerrick, Blooming-tori. 
 
 Member Illinois Live Stock Breeders’ Association and President Illinois 
 Cattle Feeders’ Association. 
 
 Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : If I should say 
 that agriculture is the first — the g-reatest — the inost honorable 
 business of the world, I would only be saying- ag-ain what the 
 best and wisest men of every ag^e have said before. 
 
 But a g-reat number of people do not so reg-ard ag-riculture; 
 they are prone to look upon it as a useful, possibly as a neces- 
 sary business, albeit a very simple one suited to the ability and 
 uncultivated tastes of plain people. 
 
 Almost any other vocation they esteem more honorable, and 
 preferable to tilling- the ground and tending the herd. 
 
 This mistaken attitude toward agriculture is not universal, 
 but it has been and is still far too general. 
 
 In the common mind agriculture is the inferior — other call- 
 ings the superior. The largest case in all history of “cart 
 before the horse” is that one wherein so great a part of mankind 
 have so persistently put agriculture in the rear — in the less hon- 
 orable place, while other vocations are put to the front in the 
 position of honor. 
 
 In the whole hook-up of our civilization this “wrong end 
 to” position of things is strongly in evidence. 
 
 This common under-estimation of agriculture, and the com- 
 mon aversion or distaste for agricultural pursuits, and the gen- 
 eral trend of people and institutions away from the farm and 
 farm life, toward professional life or any kind of life but farm 
 life, have been long noted and deplored by observing and right- 
 thinking men. 
 
 They have profoundly affected all social, political and eco- 
 nomic relations and conditions. They have upset the proper 
 balance of city and rural population. There are too few people 
 on the farms, too many in the cities. There are not enough 
 people on the farm to do the work well, while in the city there 
 
 20 
 
21 
 
 are two or three times as many as are needed to do the work 
 there. There is boundless room and unlimited living- employ- 
 ment in the country, while there is crowding- and poverty and 
 strife and strikes in the city, for lack of living- employment. 
 
 A few years ag-o there was a g-reat strike in Chicag-o. I do 
 not now remember just what precipitated it- -no matter, at bot- 
 tom the cause of all strikes is too many people needing- the same 
 job. During- this particular strike the storm for a while centered 
 about some g-rain elevators. Thousands of men threatened to 
 pull down or break in the elevators and help themselves to the 
 wheat. At that time those elevators were filled with the cheap- 
 est wheat that was ever raised in the world; but there were so 
 many people in Chicag-o who had no business there — no living- 
 business, that they could not all earn enoug-h to buy enoug-h to 
 eat of the cheapest bread the world ever had. 
 
 This pulling- away from the farms could not affect every 
 other condition and institution and leave our g-reatest institu- 
 tion, our schools, unaffected. 
 
 And what a country of schools is this! Who can count our 
 schools? They are like the stars which no man can number. 
 
 But our schools, big-, little and medium, public and private, 
 have been dominated in their org-anization and in their teaching- 
 by this same anything--but-farming- spirit. 
 
 They have taug-ht our farmers’ boys and g-irls about every- 
 thing- under the sun except those very thing-s they need and 
 must know to make their work and business attractive, satisfy- 
 ing-, successful. 
 
 The attitude of the schools toward ag-riculture has been 
 something- like this: — Anybody can farm. You do not have to 
 learn to farm. You just know it without having- to learn. There 
 is not much to learn about it anyway. There is no science, no 
 art about farming-. You do not g-o to school to learn how to 
 farm better; you do not have to. You g-o to school to learn how 
 to do something- else, so you may not have to farm. Only those 
 people who can not do something- else, work at farming-. Strange! 
 All this is passing strange, since if we but think for a moment 
 we know that had it not been for the farming which went before 
 them, never a book would have been written, never a school 
 house built on the earth. 
 
 Agriculture is the science of science, the art of arts. 
 
22 
 
 When every other art and science shall have been thought 
 and wrought out to its utmost limit, the science and practice of 
 agriculture will still present boundless unexplored fields for 
 work and research and reward, wherein every faculty of mind 
 and body with which man is endowed may find the fullest, the 
 most satisfying, the most inspiring exercise and employment. 
 
 Do not misunderstand me, I say nothing against our schools. 
 They are good. They do their work well. That such a system 
 of public and private schools as ours, with its mighty teaching 
 force and its vast material equipment should have been evolved 
 in so short a period of time, is a matter to excite our wonder 
 and compel our highest admiration. 
 
 For zeal, for self-sacrifice, for untiring labors in behalf of 
 our youth, that they become intelligent worthy men and women 
 and patriotic citizens, I say of our whole great army of teachers, 
 from the presidents of our universities and colleges to the hum- 
 bler but not less useful district school teachers, there live no 
 better, nobler, more helpful men and women than they. 
 
 But just as earnestly I say that our schools and our school 
 teachers have been nearly all looking one way, and that way 
 has been away from the farm. Is it anybody’s fault? No; it 
 is everybody’s fault. It is the colossal fault of our time and our 
 generation, to underestimate the dignity, the beauty, the profit, 
 and the honor of farming and farm life. 
 
 This wrong attitude of our schools toward agriculture has 
 of course tended strongly to draw young people from farm life 
 to professional life. 
 
 The schools have been turning out too many doctors, too 
 many lawyers, too many professors. There is no need for them 
 all, but they have been taken too often from the farm where 
 there is need of them. The professors have rather the best of 
 it because they can go on helping to turn out more doctors and 
 more lawyers and more professors. 
 
 To say the so-called learned professions are full, pressed 
 down and running over, is only hinting at their actual condition. 
 
 Something over a year ago, I read in a Chicago paper an 
 account of graduating exercises which took place at the Chicago 
 University. Let me quote you verbatim a part of President 
 Harper’s address to the graduates, as it was reported. 
 
 “You who are now entering the world will find that poverty will be the 
 
23 
 
 strongest opponent to overcome. You who are entering life as lawyers need 
 only look at the papers today to find that the average lawyer does not earn 
 his salt. Those who will become physicians will find that their only compan- 
 ion for a few years to come will be the wolf at the door; while those who go 
 forth to teach, need only to witness the struggles of the school teachers in this 
 city. The school board is beset with howls and wails for an increase of sal- 
 aries.” 
 
 This in that great and rich and growing- metropolis, Chi- 
 cago, a city affording as great or greater and more opportunities 
 for men and women trained for the learned professions than any 
 other city ; yet even there the prospect held out to those gradu- 
 ates by the president was years of starvation. If some other 
 fellows had not the strength to fast as long as these graduates, 
 then they might eventually get the other fellows places. 
 
 The first duty of an educated able bodied man is to make his 
 own living. 
 
 The man who is not in some way, at some point doing an 
 amount of the world’s necessary work equal to that required for 
 the support of one man, is a burden on society. 
 
 Do any of you fear that President Draper or Dean Daven- 
 port will ever say to a class graduating from this agricultural 
 college: Gentlemen: — You are going out to the farms. You 
 have not mastered the whole of agricultural science, that will 
 not be done by any living or yet to live, but you have done your 
 work well in the college and you are well equipped for your bus- 
 iness; however, I feel obliged to say to you that poverty will be 
 the strongest opponent you will have to overcome. The average 
 farmer is not earning his salt — that is, for his personal consump- 
 tion mind you, let alone the cattle and horse critters. The only 
 companion you will have for some years to come will be the wolf 
 at the door. 
 
 I just as much expect to read of such a speech having been 
 made here, to a class graduating from this agricultural college, 
 as I expect to find myself tomorrow morning, sitting on some 
 distant star reading that last night the cables of gravitation 
 parted down here and the whole planetary outfit fell to everlast- 
 ing smash-up. 
 
 Thirty-four years ago there was organized here an Indus- 
 trial University. Not a university of the general sort but of 
 another sort, a new kind of university. A university differing 
 in its organization — differing in its leading studies and in its 
 
24 
 
 aims and purposes from those already established in many parts 
 of the country. The courses of study in the colleg’es and univer- 
 sities existing- when this new university was org-anized were 
 adapted only to fit men for the so-called learned professions, law, 
 medicine, etc. In this new university the leading- studies were 
 those related to ag-riculture and the mechanic arts. Whereas 
 the other universities tended to withdraw their students from 
 the pursuits of industry, this new university would aim by link- 
 ing- learning- more closely to labor and by bring-ing- the lig-ht of 
 science more fully to the aid of the productive arts, to enamor 
 the sons and daug-hters of the farmer and the artisan with their 
 pursuits. There is no law in Illinois establishing- a university 
 of the g-eneral or older sort. There never has been such a law. 
 There is a law establishing- an industrial university. If this 
 university has any leg-al existence or standing-, it is as an indus- 
 trial university. By the intention of its founders, by its org-anic 
 law, by its lawfully authorized courses of study, by the will of 
 the people of Illinois it is an industrial university, not less, not 
 more. 
 
 In his address delivered on the occasion of the inaug-uration 
 of the Illinois Industrial University — that g-reat man, Dr. Newton 
 Bateman said : 
 
 “What then is the grand distinguishing feature, purpose, hope of this 
 university ? In my view it is to form a closer alliance between labor and 
 learning —between science and the manual arts, between man and nature* 
 between the human soul and God, as seen and revealed through His works. 
 
 “ It is to endeavor so to wed the intellect and hearts of the students we 
 educate, to the matchless attractions of rural and industrial life, that they will 
 with their whole soul prefer and choose that life and consecrate to it the 
 results of skill and power that may here be gained. These I hold to be the 
 aims of this university. And we hope to attain them, not by a less expensive 
 and thorough course of instruction than is given in other universities, but by a 
 somewhat different course and more especially by emphasizing from the begin- 
 ning to the end those studies and sciences which look away from the literary 
 and professional life and toward the pursuits of the agriculturist and the 
 artisan.” 
 
 Cong-ress in 1862 made a liberal g-rant of land scrip to each 
 State of the Union for the endowment, support and maintenance 
 of at least one colleg-e in the several States accepting- the bene- 
 fits of the g-rant, whose leading- object should be to teach 
 branches of learning- as related to agriculture and the mechanic 
 arts, without excluding other scientific and classical studies and 
 
25 
 
 including- military tactics, in order to promote the liberal and 
 practical education of the industrial classes in the several pur- 
 suits and professions of life. 
 
 The act of cong-ress was the origin of our university. The 
 legislature of Illinois by an act providing for the organization 
 and maintenance of the Illinois Industrial University re-enacted 
 the act of congress in identical words. 
 
 The State of Illinois might have organized and provided for 
 the maintenance of a university of the established or general 
 sort, having colleges of law, medicine, etc., including a college 
 of agriculture and mechanic arts, but she did not, and has not. 
 The perfectly obvious intent of the legislature was to establish 
 a peculiar university, contra-distinguished from that other kind 
 in that its leading studies should relate to agriculture and the 
 mechanic arts, other classical and scientific studies being per- 
 missible when and to the extent that they might subserve the 
 single great purpose, namely, the thorough and liberal and com- 
 plete education of the farmer and the artisan; this end and pur- 
 pose being accomplished, the whole purpose of the University 
 is accomplished. It was deemed by the founders that there were 
 enough of the universities of the other kind, and that more were 
 not needed. If no need in ’67 of establishing a university of the 
 general sort, what need now can there be when within the bor- 
 ders of our state there is building by private beneficence, with- 
 out charge to any tax payer, what will with scarcely a doubt 
 become the most completely equipped and the most comprehen- 
 sive in its round of learning and the most richly endowed uni- 
 versity in the world. 
 
 About three years ago, when this University had been here 
 more than thirty years; when in all there had been expended 
 upon it $4,000,000 or $5,000,000, the Illinois Farmers’ Institute 
 appointed a committee to visit the University and see how it 
 was faring with agriculture here. 
 
 The committee made its visit and investigation and reported 
 that they found an agricultural plant worth about $7,000 — 
 $7,000 ! Shades of the founders ! Excuse us farmers for what 
 we could not help and forgive us for what we could have helped 
 but did not. 
 
 But, my friends, I doubt very much if Turner and Bateman 
 and Gregory and their co-laborers would have any harsh words 
 
26 
 
 for us if they could communicate with us. They saw how the 
 educational wind was blowing- from the farm to the town, from 
 agricultural to professional life, before they went. It was only 
 a breeze in their day, but maybe from their spirit homes they 
 have seen that breeze increase to a blizzard, sweeping things 
 toward the town and toward the occupations of the town, as 
 that other kind of blizzard sweeps the snow of the plain upon 
 the hamlet in its path. 
 
 I am ready to believe that those good men if they thought 
 we could hear them, instead of chiding us, would say, boys, you 
 “did nobly” even to hold down your little cow barns in such a 
 gust. 
 
 I have not much to say about the $7,000 plant. When the 
 farmers heard about it, a movement to right things, general, 
 intelligent, 'determined, irresistible, was begun. This great 
 agricultural building is one of the fruits of that movement. 
 The generous appropriation by the last legislature for better 
 equipment of the plant, and for other purposes of the college is 
 another fruit of that movement. There will be other, perennial 
 crops of good fruit which that movement will bear. 
 
 Farmers are conservative; they are not easily moved indi- 
 vidually and are harder to move en masse, but when they move 
 other things will be moved that need moving. If the University 
 ship has been turned from its right course, little or much, or if 
 it has been turned right about and headed the wrong way, the 
 farmers will surely swing her round again and send her on her 
 appointed way. They know her mission ; it was clearly mapped 
 out from the beginning, and knowing it they will see to it that 
 she have a chance to accomplish that mission. 
 
 Lest some might think otherwise, let me say I have not 
 spoken a word in any spirit of complaining — not a word intended 
 as an arraignment of anybody for what may have been done or 
 left undone in or concerning this University. 
 
 There has been lack of information and consequent misun- 
 derstanding and disagreement among the people as to the true 
 and lawful character, scope and purpose of our University. I 
 have deemed it my right, perhaps my duty as a citizen and 
 farmer, to set forth here those purposes. 
 
 And let no one infer from any utterance of mine that I take 
 an unfavorable or gloomy view of matters and events in general. 
 
27 
 
 I believe that the preponderance of human intention and human 
 effort is toward the g'ood. I believe that the prevailing' course 
 and tendency of human institutions is toward the better. They 
 may travel sometimes obliquely — zig-zag- — wrong end foremost — 
 up side down — or even at times seem to go backwards, but alto- 
 gether they get onward and upward. 
 
 Good things — better things— the best things come not at 
 once, but by evolution, step by step from imperfection to 
 excellence. 
 
 Agriculture is the peculiar science ; in its beginnings simple 
 indeed — simplest of all ; in its higher development we shall see 
 it growing complex, comprehensive, drawing to its aid, assim- 
 ilating and rendering subservient all sciences and becoming in 
 its fullest development the master science. 
 
 Since the children of men however simple and unlearned 
 must live and maintain themselves on the earth, and since they 
 could live only upon the products of the tilled field, it was 
 necessary that they be able to provide the means of sustaining 
 life by the simplest methods of field culture. 
 
 That kind providence which cares for all living things, so 
 ordered his laws that the field by rude and simple means could 
 be made to yield the necessities of life. 
 
 But since we live by agriculture, we have been wont to look 
 upon it simply as a means of living. He who finds in his voca- 
 tion only a means of living, becomes a joyless drudge and his 
 vocation stagnant drudgery. 
 
 May we not see in this the reason why myriads have tired 
 of farming and have t urned away from the farm to other pur- 
 suits and professions ? And in this turning away of so many 
 from the farm to other pursuits and professions, may we not find 
 and see the cause of that marvelous development of other arts 
 and sciences which so distinguishes our time ? I do not doubt 
 it. The excessive interest in these, the excessive number 
 engaged in them, and the excess of energy expended upon them, 
 could have no other result but to push their development to an 
 amazing degree of perfection. 
 
 But now on every hand we see the signs of another turning, 
 a returning to agricultural pursuits. Other sciences and other 
 arts are ripe now to serve their highest purpose in the develops 
 ment of the master science, agriculture. The professions are 
 
28 
 
 full — crowded as we have seen. They no long-er pay, to put it 
 short, but that is not all nor most important ; men and women 
 conscious of power to aid in the world’s needed work and 
 inspired by sublime desire and ambition to add by their labors 
 something- to the world’s comfort, happiness and betterment, 
 disdain to waste their trained powers where not needed. If 
 place, success and competence are to be g-ained for .themselves, 
 in professional life, it must too often come by displacing- and 
 defeating- others. 
 
 With the conditions of the unskilled laborer and the artisan 
 in the city we are familiar. Living- employment is uncertain ", 
 there are too many. The mechanic, for seif preservation is 
 compelled to limit the number of apprentices in his craft, even 
 to the exclusion of his own son. Professional men are hesitating- 
 to bring- up their sons to their own calling-. How is it with 
 trade and commerce ? There is war between individuals and 
 coperation for trade, of which there is not enoug-h to g-o around 1 
 and nations that once foug-ht for liberty and honor are now ready 
 to fig-ht for trade. 
 
 The way out of it all is to the farm. To the farm is the 
 place to g-o now, and to the farm is the thing- to do. People see 
 it ; not only plain men now, but schooled, educated, learned men 
 see it and the more they know the better they see it. Necessity 
 may be the ointment that is opening- their eyes, but they see it 
 all the same. To my young- friends who question me as to the 
 most promising- field for effort now, I answer without hesitation, 
 the corn field. 
 
 We are about to return — we are returning- to ag-riculture» 
 We are taking- another step in the evolution of better thing-s for 
 mankind. 
 
 To the half employed, to the disappointed, discontented, 
 striving-, strug-g-ling- millions in other over crowded pursuits^ 
 ag-riculture says, come unto me and I will g-ive you employment; 
 I will g-ive you food and clothing- ; I will g-ive you homes ; I will 
 g-ive you contentment and honor ; I will g-ive you peace. 
 
 But we are returning- to a new ag-riculture, an ag-riculture 
 lig-hted and g-lorified by science. To the new ag-riculture the 
 ag-ricultural colleg-e and experiment station will be the main 
 gateway. 
 
29 
 
 The Ag^ricultural Colleg'e and Experiment Station is one of 
 the wisest conceptions of this or of any ag-e. 
 
 It should not be reg-arded as merely a help to ag-riculture or 
 an aid, however valuable; such an estimate falls far short of 
 the truth- It is a necessary, an indispensable ag-ent in the 
 development of a better and more profitable and more eng'ag’ing- 
 ag-riculture. The farmer can not experiment profitably. Agri- 
 cultural experiments for the most part require some years for 
 their completion. There must be parallel experiments under 
 varying conditions. Exact records must be preserved. Expen- 
 sive apparatus is often required. I need not recount the obsta- 
 cles to successful experimentation by individual farmers; they 
 are numerous and practically insurmountable. 
 
 If for no other reason, a college or association of some kind 
 is necessary, because experiments if left dependent upon the life, 
 health and inclination of private persons, would almost cer- 
 tainly fail. 
 
 Although comparatively new institutions, colleges of agri- 
 culture have abundantly proved their value. 
 
 There is but one opinion among those acquainted with their 
 work; they must be maintained. Any farmer and all farmers 
 who will watch the work done in these institutions and who will 
 apply to their own work what may be applicable, will soon be 
 their enthusiastic friends. 
 
 A reasonable amount of public money judiciously expended 
 on our agriculture college will return an hundred fold to the 
 common good. 
 
 A wise public policy will surely give liberal support to the 
 agricultural college and experiment station. 
 
 We are met here to dedicate this great building, the largest 
 agricultural college building, I believe, in the world. It is con- 
 sistent — we are the greatest agricultural community, and this 
 building stands in the center of the largest tract of the most 
 productive land comprised in any single State. It will be well 
 equipped. We have here a corps of instructors, many of them 
 already renowned for eminent services to agriculture, all are 
 learned and skillful in the art, and devoted to it. 
 
 To the great art — the greatest, we dedicate this splendid 
 building. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 Thomas J. Burrii^l, ph. d.,, ll. d., University. 
 Vice-President University of Illinois and Dean of the General Faculty. 
 
 SoMK Earpy Insidk History and its Lessons 
 
 Agricultural education and the direct application of science 
 to the affairs of practical ag-riculture have come up in our coun- 
 try throug’h g-reat tribulations. A word now at the formal dedi- 
 cation of these mag-nificent building's, erected in the interests of 
 agricultural arts and sciences, and for the educational benefit of 
 people having to do with these developing departments of skill 
 and learning, — a word uttered here under the stimulating con- 
 ditions and with this augury of marvelous things to come, — a 
 word by way of contrast upon the early struggles connected with 
 and inside of our own University, can not be without its lessons 
 upon this occasion. It is quite impossible to enter here upon a 
 history of agriculture in the University of Illinois, but attention 
 may be solicited to a few facts in that history. 
 
 In the light of the discussions which led to the donation 
 of land scrip by Congress, and the founding of the institution 
 by the State, any one may clearly read in the wording of the 
 acts by which these measures were accomplished, the intent and 
 purpose to make agriculture and the matters inherently pertain- 
 ing thereto, the leading subjects of instruction and investiga- 
 tion in the new institutions. Mr. Morrill himself, whether as 
 representative or senator, rarely spoke of anything else. In all 
 his congressional speeches he but once emphasized the import- 
 ance of mechanics and the need of aid in mechanical pursuits. 
 He did dwell at length upon the necessity of special education 
 for rural people and upon the crying need of better methods in 
 farm management. So the land-grant colleges were most fre- 
 quently spoken of as agricultural colleges. In Illinois, previous 
 to the passage of the founding act by the state legislature, 
 hardly any other name was in use, and afterward for some years 
 the term agricultural college was more commonly heard as 
 applied to this institution, as it then existed, than was the legal 
 
 30 
 
31 
 
 title, — the Illinois Industrial University. The people of Cham- 
 paign county were the earliest, and, as the result proved, the 
 most insistent bidders to secure the location of the new state 
 institution, but they thought of it and popularly called it the 
 agricultural college. It is certainly true that a few persons and 
 those who were most influential in determining the name and 
 character of that which they instituted took a wider outlook and 
 a better vision of the development which was sure to ensue. 
 With them the name University was not a misapplication, and 
 that which they understood by the modifying term “industrial” 
 was in proper keeping with the best interpretation of the entire 
 movement — a movement which account s in a considerable part 
 for the splendid achievements of the later years. But when the 
 trustees first met it was not strange that many, no doubt a 
 majority of them, still thought of the charge newly placed under 
 their care as an agricultural college. Here again the influence 
 of a few dominating minds, and notably among them that of 
 the first Regent, or President, is to be perceived. The minority, 
 as determined by count, extended the plans for the new organi- 
 zation much beyond those which the majority w?ould have 
 adopted. No one, however, thought of displacing from the head 
 and front of the list the agricultural interests. All were in 
 hearty agreement in giving these chief place in the new insti- 
 tution, to be followed by others as possibilities permitted. In 
 the first scheme of organization fifteen professorships were 
 recommended, and the first one in the list, as it was adopted, 
 is that of practical and theoretical agriculture, followed in order 
 by those of horticulture, analytical and practical mechanics, 
 military tactics and engineering, civil engineering, etc. In this 
 list the professorship of ancient languages takes the thirteenth 
 place, and that of mental and moral philosophy the fifteenth 
 place. 
 
 When appointments came to be considered it was natural, 
 under the circumstances just mentioned, that some one should 
 be first looked for to fill the professorship of agriculture. That 
 this appointment, together with that for horticulture, were not 
 made before others, was not the fault of those upon whom 
 devolved the responsibility of securing a faculty. Three men 
 for other departments were elected before a selection was made 
 for the place constantly first in consideration and deemed by all 
 
32 
 
 to be first in importance. A search for a man proved futile. It 
 was currently said at the time that there was but one professor 
 of agriculture, and that there was no other man fit for such pro- 
 fessorship in America. However, something must be done. All 
 felt that action of some kind should not be delayed, and on the 
 very day of the inaugural exercises, when the doors of the insti- 
 tution were first officially thrown open, Willard F. Bliss, of 
 Nokomis, Illinois, was elected professor of agriculture. At the 
 time, he was the owner and manager of a large farm near the 
 town just named; he was a graduate of Yale College, as that 
 famous American center of learning was then entitled; he had 
 traveled abroad, and had pretty well in command the Batin, 
 Greek, and French languages. 
 
 There were at the time in the country some men famed for 
 their attainments in science, but not one of these had been 
 trained in his specialty in an educational institution, though 
 certain of their number had gained a start through the meager 
 instruction then offered at the principal seats of higher education 
 in this country and abroad. Darwin’s Origin of Species had 
 been published almost a decade before the time now spoken of, 
 but outside of theology and the realm of theoretical science, 
 little attention had been paid to the doctrines therein advanced. 
 It certainly would not have been considered a matter to his 
 credit if a candidate for a professorship in agriculture was 
 known to have accepted these doctrines as a basis for his inves- 
 tigations and for his instruction. Indeed almost the only science 
 thought to be of real worth to a man in the position named was 
 chemistry. To his Latin and Greek and French languages and 
 to his practical acquaintance with rural affairs the world of 
 knowledge designated chemistry would have been considered a 
 valuable addition. Baron von Liebig was at the splendid pin- 
 nacle of his well-earned fame, and the renown of his epoch- 
 making researches was as great in America as in Europe. Had 
 Mr. Bliss or any one else proposed to qualify himself for teach- 
 ing the scientific agriculture he no doubt would have endeavored 
 to gain first a sitting at the feet of this highly revered master, 
 tho ugh we now know he would have learned facts which were 
 not facts, and would have had cause subsequently to unlearn a 
 not inconsiderable amount of the coveted information so gained. 
 
 Professor Bliss took up the task assigned him with much 
 
33 
 
 hesitation. He knew the situation well enough to appre- 
 ciate the dithculties in the way. He was by no means one of 
 those who dared to tread where angels feared to go. Actual 
 contact with the matters involved did not decrease the recogni- 
 tion of obstacles. The affairs of his own farm did not prosper 
 in his absence, and at the end of his first year he considered it 
 necessary to return to the less exacting if humbler duties at his 
 own home, whence he has not since been tempted away. 
 
 On November 27, 1867, Jonathan Periam was appointed 
 head farmer, the first regular employe in the earliest instituted 
 office of the University. He served in this capacity until March, 
 1869. During this time there arose some discussion as to the 
 scope of his duties, resulting in adding to his title that of super- 
 intendent of practical agriculture, and he was told to report di- 
 rectly to the committee on agriculture of the Board. But his did 
 not prove to be a path of roses, and he resigned after a service 
 of one year and four months. Even in farm management there 
 was too little unanimity of ideas to make life agreeable to one 
 under employment, with several persons esteeming themselves 
 higher in authority but differing with each other in views. 
 
 In June, 1870, during the day upon which the resignation of 
 Professor Bliss was accepted, the appointment of Dr. Manly 
 Miles was made as professor of agriculture with the understand- 
 ing that he should serve during the fall and winter months, thus 
 dividing equally his time between the Michigan Agricultural 
 College and this institution. No one else in America at this 
 time enjoyed anything comparable with Dr. Miles in the public 
 estimation of competency to give instruction in scientific agri- 
 culture. He it was who had been called the only professor of 
 the subject in the country. The trustees and others considered 
 themselves in great good fortune when it seemed he was to lead 
 the way out of the dilemma in which they found themselves 
 placed. But it was not to be. Arrangements failed at the 
 Michigan end of the line, and it was not until five years subse- 
 quently that he finally resigned at Lansing to accept here the 
 double duty of professor of agriculture and of agricultural chem- 
 istry. The latter part of the title was added in good part be- 
 cause he was to draw two salaries compared with those usually 
 paid. This time he entered upon service here with anticipations, 
 at least on the part of others, of great accomplishments. The 
 
34 
 
 perplexing-, disappointing-, discourag-ing-, and disag-reeing- condi- 
 tion of thing-s in connection with the department and its work 
 was to come to an end, and there was a justifiable basis for g-reat 
 hope for the future. No other action by the authorities could 
 have been taken which seemed so full of promise, so big- iii anti 
 cipated results. Alas ! The transplantation did not succeed. 
 Perhaps the roots were down too deep to permit the severance ; 
 perhaps the new soil was ill-suited to development of this second 
 foot-hold. There was no lack in vigor, however. New growth 
 was apparent enough in many ways, yet all ceased at the end of 
 one year. This latter was largely due to radical differences of 
 opinion as to what should constitute the curriculum of study in 
 the University generally as well as to what should be attempted 
 in the agricultural department itself. There was, in a word, 
 too little real knowledge and too much fanciful theorizing for 
 any substantial unity of purpose or agreement in procedure. 
 The storm ended by the professor’s withdrawal. 
 
 When in 1870 or 1871 it came to be understood that Dr. 
 Miles could not accept his first engagement strenuous efforts 
 were made to fill the place. All this came to nothing. There 
 was really no one to appoint with any confidence in the outcome. 
 Then it was said we must make a professor. Fortunately in- 
 struction in the biological and physical sciences gained rapidly 
 in the new state institutions. Laboratories were equipped as 
 never before in our land. Laboratory methods soon largely sup- 
 plemented or supplanted the lecture system of instruction in 
 science. Students began to deal with things rather than with 
 printed or spoken words. The change in educational procedure 
 amounted almost to a revolution due not alone to the founding 
 of the land grant colleges, but carried forward by them with un- 
 equaled spirit and energy. The making of an agricultural pro- 
 fessor was nearer possible than ever it had been before. The 
 first class graduated from the Illinois Industrial University in 
 1872. One of the brightest of its members was made an assist- 
 ant in the chemical laboratory, and during his first year of ser- 
 vice was selected in effect for the agricultural position. He went 
 to Europe for a year’s study shaped entirely towards his antici- 
 pated duty, and in 1874 was made instructor in agricultural 
 chemistry. Perhaps personal reasons in this case more than in 
 any other caused the termination of the engagement after the 
 
35 
 
 apparently established period of one year. It was at the close 
 of this service that Dr. Miles entered upon his work. In the 
 meantime the affairs of practical ag-riculture, as the phrase was, 
 had been entrusted to the head farmer and to one or another em- 
 ployed as temporary director of field experiments. The Reg’ent 
 and various members of the faculty gave assistance, such as it 
 was, in class instruction. 
 
 In 1876 George E. Morrow, then professor of agriculture in 
 the Iowa Agricultural College, was elected to the chair in this 
 institution, and in one respect, but by no means in all related 
 things, the fateful troubles were ended. He retained his office 
 during eighteen consecutive years, and was dean of the college 
 from the time of its organization in 1878. So far as this early 
 history reaches and with all it includes, there is no other name 
 so important for what it recalls, so lustrous for what it denotes. 
 In his memory the hall in which we meet is appropriately, and, 
 let us trust, significantly named. Today as we triumphantly 
 dedicate these buildings, we bring also our loving tributes and 
 our laden testimonials to the service-rendered memory of this 
 service-giving man. He was singularly gifted in many ways, 
 and these included qualifications needful in the arduous and dif- 
 ficult work which he undertook to perform. He harmonized 
 opinions, co-ordinated interests, gained the confidence and good 
 will of those in authority and of others with whom he worked. 
 Himself an editor in his earlier career, he secured a favorable 
 attitude on the part of the agricultural press. He was unequaled 
 at the time as a lecturer at home and abroad upon agricultural 
 themes, and his devotion to his subject was limitless in time and 
 boundless in endeavor. He, too, however, had his professional 
 troubles. He often went from his office at the close of the day 
 with a heavy heart. His tired brain too frequently suggested : 
 What is the use ? Why prolong the contest ? But the next 
 morning he took up again his task with spirit and with continu- 
 ous hope of ultimate success. There were encouragements as 
 well as discouragements, but we are not attempting a complete 
 story. At the close of his long career he could not say that in 
 the actual and plainly observable condition of things his expec- 
 tations had been justified or his favorable predictions fulfilled. 
 
 Turning now for a moment to horticulture in this rapid 
 review, similar statements might in part be made. After two 
 
36 
 
 years of inquiry the second professorship in the orig-inal list had 
 not been filled. Here again no one in our entire country was 
 really qualified for the proposed duties. In the emergency the 
 trustees turned to a young assistant professor of natural history in 
 charge of a department so named and which had been organized 
 during the first year, and in March, 1870, he was made profes- 
 sor of botany and horticulture. That he continues in service 
 was due, without doubt, to the connections with the first subject 
 in this title. The horticultural duties were addenda. After 
 the class-room exercises were over for the day, drains could be 
 located, grounds laid out, trees planted, fruits gathered, plant 
 diseases studied, etc. It is almost certain no man could have 
 long sustained himself in these practical affairs taken by them- 
 selves. The story would have been that already told. 
 
 Such in brief and in a rather one-sided account is the early 
 history of agriculture in this institution in which the subject and 
 the workers now have so prominent a part. Let us see if we can 
 find the causes for the slow and dearly-bought development. 
 
 In the first place we must understand that the history here 
 is in no wise peculiar, neither can failure be attributed to any 
 want of earnestness of purpose or honesty of mind on the part of 
 authorities. What was true here was essentially the case else- 
 where. As we have seen, great things were anticipated; agri- 
 culture and agricultural people were to be vastly and at once 
 benefited by the new institutions. Nothing else was to take 
 precedence under any consideration. This first, other things 
 secondary. The disappointment was attributable to causes such 
 as the following: 
 
 1. Too much was expected. Too great things were to be ac- 
 complished. The public mind has been aroused to a condition of 
 great expectancy without having concerned itself with the means 
 of accomplishment or even without any well-founded reasons 
 upon which the effects should follow. The inevitable result was 
 disappointment and a disposition to blame somebody for it. 
 
 2. The ends sought were vaguely perceived. Everybody 
 thought he knew what was needed to be done and perhaps how 
 to do it, but the thinking was superficial; it was theoretical in 
 the main and took color from the circumstances and character- 
 istics of the individual. There was therefore clash of opinion 
 with no standard of comparison or valuation. 
 
37 
 
 3. Science had not been adjusted to the elucidation of the 
 complex problems involved. The complexity and difficulty of 
 these problems v^ere rarely recognized. It had been proclaimed 
 and believed that a chemical analysis of soil would infallibly 
 indicate what crops would succeed thereon, or what definite sub- 
 stance or substances must be added to make certain crops a cer- 
 tain success. Almost no attention had been given the biological 
 factors. As is the case with all those partially informed the men 
 of science were over confident. Their emphatic statements did 
 not find support in practice, and science itself was discredited. 
 The idea that a professor could teach agriculture was often held 
 to be ridiculous, and there was some basis for this holding. In a 
 word science and practice were too far apart and each esteemed 
 the other too little. 
 
 4. There was woeful want of understanding in regard to 
 what one man could and could not do. For a score of years only 
 one department was thought of by either trustees or by pro- 
 fessors. Each institution had filled its complement of officers 
 with one professor of agriculture. He and his superiors thought 
 it was his duty to develop and teach the whole subject, or rather 
 all the subjects suggested by the name. Superficiality prevailed 
 but no one recognized it. We see it now well enough, but 
 through advantages not then enjoyed. We will do well if with 
 all our helps the agricultural departments are not too open still 
 to this criticism. 
 
 5. No one began to realize the unavoidable cost of agricul- 
 tural education given in anything like a truly sensible way. A 
 lecture room with a desk, some chairs or settees (not very many), 
 a few charts and pictures hung upon the walls, — these consti- 
 tuted a professor’s equipment aside from the things to be found 
 in the barn or in the fields. Is it a wonder that students were 
 few and that enthusiasm was at a low ebb ? Chemical and 
 physical laboratories were known to need large and varied sup- 
 plies of apparatus and materials, but that equivalent facilities 
 should be furnished the teacher of agriculture no one, not even 
 the latter surmised. 
 
 6. Without further enumeration it may be said that the 
 agricultural education of the first quarter of a century in our 
 land-grant colleges was poor and halting because it was before 
 its time. The inertia of the ages was upon it. There was no 
 
38 
 
 self-g’eneration of power. A second birth was needed here as 
 elsewhere ; a birth of the spirit and of the understanding*. 
 
 Let us be thankful today for the tribulations of the past. 
 Let us square ourselves to the new conditions and by the new 
 interpretations of requirements and of possibilities. Let us g*ive 
 due credit to those who, working* in the dark and under restraints 
 and limitations made possible the dawning* light we enjoy and 
 straightened the path in which our feet may tread. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 K. Davenport, m.agr.. University. 
 
 Dean of the College of Agriculture and Director of the Agricultural 
 Experiment Station. 
 
 Upon the front of this building- are two inscriptions that 
 fairly indicate what the structure stands for. One is from the 
 pen of President Draper — “The wealth of Illinois is in her soil, 
 and her strength lies in its intelligent development.” Here is a 
 great economic truth that lies at the very foundation of the 
 future of Illinois, and one whose whole significance it is the 
 business of this building and all it contains to assiduously propa- 
 gate among the people. 
 
 The other inscription is one of the many new truths 
 announced by Professor Turner, whose statesman-like conception 
 of the meaning and possibilities of higher education has not 
 only given us the land grant colleges in all the states but has 
 introduced some new educational standards among the people. 
 This sentiment of Professor Turner’s upon our cornice — “ Indus- 
 trial education prepares the way for a millennium of labor” — 
 serves to remind us that the material resources of a people will 
 never be fully developed without the aid of trained intelligence; 
 and further, that the man who develops these resources and 
 provides the material without which not only our civilization but 
 our lives would go out to-day — that this man whom the world 
 has neglected because he labored with his hands — that he is a 
 man whom God has made like other men to look upward, and 
 who in this country at least has made himself a citizen. 
 
 These sentiments mean that no people can become great 
 without regard to the fruits of labor. They mean, too, that 
 labor can not be effective until it is trained; that no laborer can 
 develop and use the resources of a country as they should be 
 developed and used until he is intelligent; and they mean further, 
 that the man himself need not be offered a living sacrifice to the 
 labor necessary to bestow upon the material world to make it 
 habitable for civilized man reaching out after the infinite. These 
 sentiments mean, too, that we shall all go along together, if we 
 
 39 
 
40 
 
 be wise, as we travel upward. They mean that further prog’ress 
 in material thing's and the later steps in civilization can be 
 attained only throug-h the highest intelligence in all lines of 
 human activity, and the man who offers that intelligence need 
 not be sacrificed; that he can be something more than a step- 
 ping stone by which the few enjoy what other men have done. 
 They mean that the masses of men representing all needful ele- 
 ments of our civilization shall improve themselves and their 
 activities together, and that when any of these fail for any 
 cause then the limits of our civilization are reached. 
 
 All this means, if it means anything, that every needful 
 thing must be propagated, and it means, too, that a virile peo- 
 ple in an advancing civilization will propagate needful things, 
 both in the field of utility and of beauty. 
 
 The last half century has seen and heard so much of “indus- 
 trial education,’" of “new standards,” of “utility,” of “the new 
 education,” of “material development,” and of “commercial 
 supremacy” — it has seen and heard so much of these, and it has 
 seen so much of the strivings after higher education, of people 
 who had heretofore been content with none, that a feeling of 
 alarm akin to a nervous chill has swept the ranks of the educa- 
 tional world, and there be those who can not understand this 
 latter day development of industrial education, especially the 
 agricultural. They look upon it as dangerous in one way or 
 another, and feel a nameless fear that it means an overthrowing 
 of standards like the falling of the ancient altars at Stonehenge, 
 perhaps. 
 
 Let me say to these good people, be not disturbed. This is 
 not revolution; it is evolution. Those who are interested in the 
 propagation of higher standards for industry and industrial peo- 
 ple understand very well that our civilization does not rest upon 
 industry alone, and, in laboring never so determinedly for the 
 development of our agriculture and the betterment of the agri- 
 cultural people, they would subtract nothing from the develop- 
 ment of every other needful element of our civilization. They 
 believe most fervently that trained industry provides the 
 strength of a people as does art or science its refinement, and 
 that no matter what the exigencies of civilization, no man should 
 be sacrificed to his calling or to any other man. They believe 
 that any people that neglects any of its industries, — mining. 
 
41 
 
 manufacturing-, commerce or ag-riculture, or fails to secure their 
 hig-hest development, sacrifices bj so much its streng-th and its 
 endurance, and they understand perfectly, too. —these people 
 who are eng-ag-ed in the development of our industries — that 
 any nation or any people that closes its eyes to the teaching’s of 
 history is blinded; and that if it neg-lects art as expressed in 
 literature, painting-, sculpture or music, it loses by that much 
 the refinement it mig-ht enjoy. They understand that industry 
 without refinement leads to sturdy barbarism, and they believe 
 that refinement without trained industry leads to letharg-y and 
 decay. Therefore it is dang-erous for a civilized people to neg-- 
 lect any industry, art, or accomplishment, as it is to pursue a 
 policy that will permit one class to do all the thinking and com- 
 pel another to perform all the labor ; and therefore, this great 
 movement for the betterment of agriculture, not peculiar to Illi- 
 nois, but taking possession of all our people everywhere, is not 
 revolutionary. It subtracts nothing from anything. If it erects 
 some new standards it pulls no others down. If it does empha- 
 size the importance of educated industry, it detracts nothing 
 from art and refinement. If it would increase the wealth of the 
 country it only provides the means for a yet higher civilization, 
 and if it be wisely used it will come. If it adds to the material 
 strength of the people it detracts nothing from their refinement; 
 for a people, like a man, may be both powerful and refined. 
 Therefore whatever new problems arise for adjustment incident 
 to the great movement for industrial education they should be 
 adjusted with confident courage, for we need have no apprehen- 
 sion as to final results, because the movement is natural and in 
 the best interests of all classes of people. 
 
 I am inclined to think, however, that the rise and progress 
 of industrial education is bringing into the world of thought a 
 new standard of life for all men. Once it was taught that the 
 highest life consisted in withdrawing from one’s fellows, and 
 spending his days in contemplation — in thinking for thought’s 
 sake, — in leading a life which begins and ends in the individual, 
 an ever hopeless attempt to solve the infinite. I am not sure but 
 industrial education is introducing into the world the gospel of 
 “doing things” — that every man must contribute something in 
 the way of both thought and action to the times in which he 
 lives, and that instead of spending his life wrapped in contem- 
 
42 
 
 plation attempting- to solve for himself the infinite, he is to 
 assiduously help his neig"hbors solve the finite. I should be 
 proud to be convinced that this comparatively new standard has 
 come to us, partly at least by the avenue of industrial education. 
 
 This all reminds us that there is a distinction between the 
 individual and the mass; and between the man who is taug-ht 
 and the thing- that is taug-ht him. Now an educational policy 
 may be very g-ood for the individual and very bad for the mass. 
 It may be so framed and conducted as to g-ive certain few indi- 
 viduals a tremendous advantag-e over their fellows even to the 
 extent of largely freeing them from the responsibilities of life, 
 thus laying additional burdens upon the less favored ones. It 
 is an open question of the older educational ideals which did not 
 tend to foster this condition of things. However that may be, 
 we are glad to hail a gospel, an educational doctrine, to the 
 effect that education frees the individual from nothing, but lays 
 upon him greater responsibilities towards the community and 
 the generation in which he lives. 
 
 Like all other new movements this one of industrial educa- 
 tion was obliged to defend itself in the early days when almost 
 nobody believed in its potency for anything but evil. That very 
 defense has erected some new standards good for all men to 
 observe. Industrial education could not at first be defended on 
 the plea of popular demand because those individuals to be most 
 directly benefited — the farmers — seemed not to desire it, but 
 rather to poke fun at it. This drove its advocates out upon 
 higher ground; viz., that agriculture and industry in general 
 should be studied, taught, and developed from the standpoint of 
 public policy, and because their development was needed as a 
 natural and necessary condition to coming civilization, and 
 without regard as to whether or not it was desired by individuals. 
 
 The battle was fought out and won upon this ground and 
 we all have been taught a lesson — a great educational truth it 
 seems to me — viz., that institutions of learning and research exist 
 primarily, not for the benefit of particular individuals, but that 
 they exist primarily in order to develop certain great subjects 
 as, agriculture, engineering, chemistry, economics, literature, 
 music, and to stimulate their growth among the people. Under 
 this view teachers and investigators both in college and without 
 
43 
 
 are the leaders in this development, and the students are the 
 means for its propag-ation among the people. 
 
 Under this thought, this building and the college and ex- 
 periment station that it shelters are devoted primarily to the 
 development of agriculture in Illinois, and they may do anything 
 and should do anything in harmony with other interests that 
 will contribute to that development. The students, therefore, — 
 much as we love them — are not educated so much for their own 
 sake as that they shall go out and carry into their generation 
 the best that the present has to give. They have no business to 
 consider what is here learned and taught as personl property to 
 be hidden in a napkin or to be used only for personal enjoyment 
 or advantage. They must take it and use it for the benefit of 
 all men and for the development of our industries. 
 
 It is to be said however, for the college and for the business 
 of instruction in general that no method of propagating truth 
 amoDg the people is half so effective as that which goes out 
 from the class room and the laboratory in the minds and hearts 
 of young men and women. These go out and begin new lives, 
 and because it is easier to adjust than readjust, so it is that 
 after experiment stations and scientists have discovered all that 
 is to be known of agricultural truth and the last bulletin and 
 scientific article have been published on the morning of the 
 millennium — then will it be seen that after all the greatest work 
 was instruction and the most powerful agents of progress are 
 well trained young men and women. 
 
 This building on the hill and what it shelters are by no 
 means the only agents for agricultural development in Illinois. 
 There is besides, the public press, a wide spread correspondence 
 and an interested and progressive constituency. If in the old 
 days farmers were slow to believe in such institutions and were 
 prone to overestimate their own experience, that day has passed. 
 If it be true yet in any state or section, it is most emphatically 
 not true in Illinois today. 
 
 Upon the farms of this state there are hundreds, yes, 
 thousands of farmers, each meeting both success and failure, 
 who are determined that the agriculture of this State shall 
 advance; that these lands which have not properly responded to 
 our efforts shall produce; that those which have produced shall 
 yield more, and that we shall so learn to manage these lands 
 
44 
 
 that we hold, not in fee simple but in trust for those who shall 
 come after us — that we shall so treat them that their productive 
 capacity shall not g-row less but more— to the end that our 
 children’s children’s children shall not curse us in our graves, 
 but shall bless us for leaving behind us and to their generation 
 material wealth enough to make it possible for them to be civil- 
 ized, for have you not thought that man may so treat the earth 
 as to starve his own descendants? I say to this audience and to 
 all men that the determination of these men to develop agricul- 
 tural education in Illinois is unalterable; and the energy with 
 which they will prosecute it in their generation is akin to the 
 energy of despair in the hopeless and the energy of faith in the 
 martyr. These represent the same interests that a generation 
 ago were indifferent to agricultural education and d^evelopment. 
 But they have seen and felt both the necessities and the possi- 
 bilities of education in agriculture and they have looked ahead 
 down the generations and have seen what these things mean in 
 the last analysis; not only that, but thinking men of all callings 
 recognize and lend sympathy and assistance to this movement 
 for a better agriculture. And this is why the agricultural 
 development of Illinois is to be represented, not by the building 
 we now dedicate, nor the college and station that it shelters, but 
 by the men who own and occupy the lands of the state and by 
 those other men in many callings who understand what agricul- 
 tural development means. This is why the movement will 
 endure. 
 
 'These have been the men who have helped the University 
 to do this thing — to build the largest single building devoted to 
 agriculture in the world, and without them it could not have 
 been done. Thirty-three years ago a college of agriculture was 
 established here. It languished until the time came when these 
 men representing the interests it was designed primarily to 
 benefit, took hold of the matter. It did not thrive until then — 
 it could not have thriven before. 
 
 In 1895 the trustees asked for $40,000 for a dairy building. 
 It was scarcely considered. Two years later they asked for 
 $80,000 for an agricultural buildiug. It failed, and many 
 farmers and farmers’ ins titutes opposed it. Two years later, 
 and for the third time, the trustees asked for an agricultural 
 building, but fixed the amount at $100,000. The farmers 
 
45 
 
 officially endorsed it in the State Institute and a campaign of 
 education commenced throughout the length and breadth of the 
 State By careful study it became evident that $100,000 would 
 not be sufficient to provide what was needed and the estimate 
 was raised to $150,000 during the campaign. It was supported 
 by every agricultural organization of the state— I had almost 
 said by every farmer and citizen of the state — and passed the 
 General Assembly without amendment and with only one dis- 
 senting vote. 
 
 When this vote was taken we had twenty-one regular and 
 twenty- two short course students. The next year, although we 
 abolished the short course, we registered a total of ninety, and 
 this year a total of one hundred and fifty -seven. 
 
 Then again, these same farmers in the name of their various 
 organizations have just closed a campaign for increasing the 
 funds of the experiment station by over $50,000 annually. This 
 with the askings of the trustees for fur nishing the building and 
 for increased support of the college, provides a fund for the col- 
 lege and station not exceeded by that of any single institution 
 devoted to agriculture in the world. 
 
 Wherefore, then we should all rejoice this day. What has 
 been done we have done together — for nobody’s good but that of 
 Illinois. The University stands not only for industry but for all 
 things needful and contemporaneous w ith this increase in agri- 
 cultural funds it has received the largest appropriation in its 
 history, showing that Illinois is large enough of pocket and of 
 heart so that one thing need not feed off another, but that she 
 is both ready and willing to do well whatever needs to be done 
 for the good of all her interests and the benefit of all her citizens. 
 
 4 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 THE OPPORTUNITY IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 Thomas F. Hunt, M. S. 
 
 Dean of the College of Agriculture and Domestic Science, Ohio State 
 
 University. 
 
 The history of education, for, in, and by agriculture is 
 always a fascinating- subject and it is difficult to resist its recital. 
 Its history is no part of the theme for this afternoon, however, 
 and, moreover, it has frequently been set forth at leng-th by far 
 more potent pens. If this address contains aug-ht of history, it 
 will be because of its bearing- upon the present and the future. 
 
 The discussions of this subject forty or fifty years ag-omake 
 it perfectly clear that the early ag-itators were concerned in edu- 
 cation for agriculture rather than in agriculture or hy agricul- 
 ture. They were concerned in the education of all the industrial 
 classes along lines which would make them the most effective 
 “ in the several pursuits and occupations of life” because they 
 believed that the welfare of the State depended upon the educa- 
 tion of the masses. This is, indeed, the only warrant for the 
 taxation of the people for the personal benefit of the individual. 
 We vote bread and meat only to the physically, mentally, or 
 morally incompetent. We vote a free education in order to 
 give every one a reasonable opportunity to earn his bread and 
 meat, because the welfare of the State demands it. This prop- 
 osition is too well understood to need more than the merest 
 statement. The magnificent series of buildings, which we are 
 called upon to dedicate today, the most extensive in the world 
 for the purposes for which they are intended, is evidence suf- 
 ficient, if evidence were needed, that this proposition has lost 
 none of its force in the nearly thirty-nine years that have elapsed 
 since the Congress of the United States, amid the most terrific 
 civil conflict, passed the epoch making bill which prepared the 
 way for the’ Arts of Peace. I wish here to congratulate my 
 alma mater and all its ofla.cers who have promoted this under- 
 taking upon their splendid achievement and to thank the people 
 
 46 
 
47 
 
 of the great Empire State of Illinois who have so g-enerously 
 voted money, not only in their own interests but in the interest 
 of mankind for all time to come. 
 
 The farmer’s need of education is a theme which I delig-ht to 
 discuss. It is the proposition that if a man is going- to be a 
 farmer, he of all men should have a thorough school training. 
 The operations of the banker, the merchant, the manufacturer, 
 the lawyer, the public speaker even, teach them much that they 
 need to know to be successful. They are taught to do by the 
 doing. What does the spreading of manure teach a man con- 
 cerning the chemistry of fertilizers? What does the planting 
 and reaping of corn teach a man concerning the laws of plant- 
 growing? 
 
 The ordinary operations of the farm do not teach the 
 farmer the most important facts concerning his business. In 
 order to get that information most necessary to his highest suc- 
 cess the knowledge obtained from farming must be supplemented 
 from some other source. The more you look at this question, 
 the more avenues from which you approach it, the stronger it 
 will appeal to you. 
 
 This proposition was defended from this platform nearly 
 seventeen years ago when the last act in securing a first degree 
 from these profes — No, I forget. It was not these professors. 
 It was only seventeen years ago, — only a few years ago, surely, — 
 but what changes ! Since then, many a platform has been occu- 
 pied with moderate composure, but here is but a beardless boy, 
 standing with sinking heart before his fellow students, and as he 
 walks out and makes his bow to President Peabody, he casts a 
 hurried glance down the row with that feeling of student rev- 
 erence for his professors that should he live till he was three score 
 and ten, he could not out live. But I have been dreaming. Eet 
 me look again. Morrow, Snyder, Crawford, Prentice, 
 McMurtrie, Roos, Pickard, who said, “Miss Pierce, can you 
 pierce that?” “No,” flashed back instantly the reply, “ But I 
 cdiTH pick hard at it.” These are no longer present. Some have 
 already gone to a deserved rest. But have they all gone? Eet 
 me look again. No, a few remain. Dear men and true, — men 
 who have seen this great University grow from a tiny seedling 
 into a sturdy and ever expanding oak, — still hold honored posi- 
 tions and influence in the faculty and affectionate places in the 
 
48 
 
 hearts of the alumni. Great, indeed, have been the changes in 
 seventeen years. Then there were less than four hundred stu- 
 dents; now more than two thousand five hundred. Then the 
 faculty consisted of twenty-eight persons; now the instructional 
 force consists of two hundred and fifty-eight persons. Then 
 there were buildings devoted to instructional purposes worth 
 with equipment less than $350,000; now they are valued at one 
 and one-third million dollars. The total annual income from 
 all sources was then less than $100,000; now it is nearly half a 
 million dollars, the climax being capp ed by the largest appro- 
 priation ever made by a legislature at one time for an educa- 
 tional institution. 
 
 I beg your pardon, ladies and gentlemen, for having allowed 
 my personal feelings towards the old student home to lead me 
 thus from the subject. The farmer’s need of education is not, 
 however, to be the theme this afternoon. 
 
 A passing thought can not be resisted concerning that 
 ancient argument in favor of the farm, viz., that the farm has 
 been the source of presidents, statesmen, diplomats, eminent 
 lawyers, doctors, ministers, ad ad naiiseiim. The logic 
 
 of this is that the farm is a good place to be born if you only 
 get away soon enough. This argument says in effect that the 
 farm is a valuable breeding ground to furnish strong, healthy, 
 vigorous stock for the nation, the most able and the most intel- 
 lectual of which are to be selected to supply the professions and 
 manage the business interests of our cities, while the rest may 
 go to the devil or become farmers. Apparently, in the minds of 
 many, the two destinies are identical. I have no quarrel with 
 this argument when it is stated frankly, but I submit it is not 
 calculated to convince a young man that agriculture offers him 
 an opportunity for a worthy career. 
 
 The thesis of this address is, Does agriculture (using the 
 term in its broadest and proper sense) offer an opportunity 
 worthy of an able, intellectual, ambitious young man? Can 
 there be found therein a career worthy of an educated, broad- 
 minded man? 
 
 Last year a young man graduated from the course in Agri- 
 culture. He happened to be unusually young. He was but 
 twenty. Almost immediately upon graduation he was appointed 
 to a cadetship at West Point through the courtesy of Senators 
 
49 
 
 Hanna and Foraker. He was an able, intellectual, cultured stu- 
 dent of excellent spirit, manner and address. He has had, as I 
 believe, a thoroug-h, sound education. He was such a young* 
 man as any home or colleg-e mig-ht be proud to send into the 
 world. As it happened, he had during* his colleg*e course been 
 very much interested in the military drill, having* occupied about 
 every position in the battalion from private to adjutant, and 
 had, in the absence of the commandant, during* the Spanish- 
 American war, had charg*e of the battalion and taug*ht military 
 tactics. Suddenly he had two careers open to him. If he chose 
 the one, the g*overnment would see to it that he suffered no real 
 pecuniary need throughout his life time. His abilities are such 
 as reasonably to assure promotion. He might even hope to 
 occupy a position in the army second only to the President of 
 the United States. If he chose the other career, and at that 
 moment there was no immediate opportunity open to him, he 
 must seek a career, where there was the ever present but ever 
 unpleasant duty of providing bread and meat. He was up 
 against (this is not slang) one of the great problems of life. 
 He, of course, sought advice, but, I believe, he decided finally 
 for himself. He does not lack in bravery, and I do not believe 
 he had any special sentiment concerning the agricultural life. 
 He had to decide between the art of war and the art of peace. 
 He chose the art of peace. Did he choose wisely? It may be 
 of some significance to note here that he subsequently entered 
 the government service, but it was in the Department of Agri- 
 culture and not in the Department of War, 
 
 This, then, shall be the theme for a brief time this after- 
 noon,— Does the opportunity in Agriculture furnish a worthy 
 career? I shall discuss it in two aspects, viz., the character of 
 the education, which a course in agriculture offers and the 
 opportunity for one so educated. Nor is the subject to be treated 
 from the agreeableness of the occupation. The bea uty of sitting 
 under your own vine and fig tree shall not enter into this dis- 
 cussion. No one will claim that the occupation of the President 
 of the United States is a particularly pleasant one, but every 
 man is ready and anxious to admit, if not by word at least by 
 deed, that the position is worthy of the ambition of any Ameri- 
 can born citizen. Whether a man likes to wade around in the 
 mud in the pure air rather than to walk on the carpet in the 
 
50 
 
 foul atmosphere (both literally and figuratively) of a criminal 
 court room, is largely a matter of personal preference. It is a 
 case of head vs. feet. 1, each year, become more gratified that 
 I did not choose the profession of law, because of my personal 
 dislike for many of the circumstances surrounding a law practice, 
 but that is not sufficient reason for others to avoid it, and every 
 one must recognize that the practice of law offers to an 
 ambitious, educated, high minded young man an opportunity for 
 a worthy career. 
 
 When these institutions first offered themselves to the public 
 as agricultural colleges, a few men in their faculties did a little 
 teaching for agriculture, still less teaching in agriculture, and 
 generally no teaching at all by agriculture. This is not strange. 
 The few noble spirits, who kept alive the fires that burned so 
 feebly during the first twenty years, and who essayed to teach 
 the application of the sciences to agriculture, had not had, 
 except in rare instances, any training in the sciences which they 
 sought to apply, and, except in rare instances again, did the 
 men who taught the sciences perceive their relation to agriculture 
 and sometimes cared less. 
 
 Some exceptions, however, are worthy of note. The first 
 experiment stations, established through the zeal and self sacri- 
 fice of a small group of men, were the means of instructing and 
 inspiring a few young men, who have become the leaders of 
 scientific thought as it relates to agriculture. These men may 
 not have all been thoroughly practical men but they were deeply 
 trained in the sciences relating to agriculture. On the other 
 hand, there were a few of our colleges that had the good fortune 
 to secure as their so-called professor of agriculture, men of un- 
 usual vigor of mind, enthusiasm for the cause, and withal a wide 
 knowledge of agriculture. In these institutions, a few young 
 men have been trained, which, meeting with their more scientifi- 
 cally but less practically trained brethren, have together helped 
 to control the destiny of this cause during the past twenty years. 
 
 It was not, however, until ten years ago, which happens to 
 be coincidental with the passage of the second Morrill Act, that 
 the teachers of what may be called technical agriculture were at 
 all generally men who had been trained in the sciences underly- 
 ing agriculture. These men, be it observed, had received their 
 training in technical agriculture from men who had, themselves, 
 
51 
 
 for the most part, had no scientific training-. What I would like 
 to have the thoug-htful joung- man see at this point is that most 
 of the men, who have been trained in ag-riculture by those who 
 have themselves had a colieg-e training- in ag-riculture, have not 
 been out of colleg-e more than five or six years and are, for the 
 most part, less than thirty years of ag-e. Boards of Trustees are 
 remorseless and, perhaps, properly so, and men of my training- 
 will soon be no long-er needed. 
 
 It is fully recog-nized that the professional field in agriculture 
 is a distinctly limited one and it would, indeed, be a sad com- 
 mentary upon the cause, if it was the only worthy field in agri- 
 culture open to a young man. But this much may be said that 
 in the past ten years, while I have been expecting to see this 
 theoretically limited field supplied, the opportunities have con- 
 stantly increased in number and improved in character. An 
 illustration from a single State university having eighteen 
 courses of study which lead to a degree, may be permitted. 
 Twenty of its graduates during the last ten years are now in 
 college positions other than their alma mater. Seven of these are 
 from the course in agriculture. There has not been a year in 
 the past five years that thoroughly trained and thoroughly able 
 agriculturists have not been in demand for positions requiring 
 the highest capabilities. 
 
 Teachers are the first necessity of a school of any kind, but 
 only second to the necessity of teachers is the necessity for some- 
 thing to teach. The sciences have made great strides since 1870, 
 especially the biological sciences. Chemistry had, indeed, a 
 thoroughly established standing and the professor of natural 
 science did the rest. However, mathematics and physics are 
 not mechanics or engineering; physiology is not medicine; and 
 chemistry is not agriculture, however fundamental these may be 
 to the callings in question. 
 
 What did we know about dairying in 1870 that we now 
 teach? Principally that cows would produce milk in the summer 
 time if the pastures were good; that if we stirred some myster- 
 ious thing that came on the top of it, called cream, it would turn 
 into butter; or if we added the juices of a calf’s stomach to the 
 milk, it would turn into cheese, — all of which had been known 
 for four thousand years. Dairying is now a specialized industry 
 
52 
 
 requiring- a special education and training- to succeed in it. 
 Among- men of business judg-ment none others need apply. 
 
 In an article on “ Harvest Implements” in Morton’s Cyclo- 
 pedia of Agriculture, published in 1871, the writer states that 
 “Notwithstanding all the ingenuity, however, that has hitherto 
 been applied to this subject, reaping has been and no doubt for 
 many years, as we have said, will continue to be a manual oper- 
 ation.” The writer then proceeds to describe the various forms 
 of sickles with which it is proper to cut grain. This article was 
 not written by an ignoramus. Morton’s Cyclopedia of Agricul- 
 ture was as standard in the field of agriculture as the Century 
 Dictionary is in the field of letters. It is true that America had 
 known something of the reaping machines for fifteen years, but 
 the self binder was yet a figment of the dreams of a few inven- 
 tors. What this means may, perhaps, be best emphasized by 
 the startling but nevertheless true statement that if the small 
 grains of the crop of 1901 in the United States had to be reaped 
 by the method so gravely described by our English authority, it 
 would take the combined efforts of every man of military age in 
 the United States three weeks to accomplish the task. This has 
 an important bearing upon what is to follow. Here emphasis is 
 laid upon the fact that rural engineering is a different problem 
 from what it was thirty years ago. 
 
 Take an illustration from the field of animal industry that 
 is just now for special reasons a very attractive line of work. In 
 1870, there were common in the United States one recognized 
 breed of horses, three breeds of cattle, two or three breeds of 
 swine, and, perhaps, five breeds of sheep. Some other breeds of 
 live stock had been introduced, but they were practically 
 unknown. At present, we have at least eleven recognized breeds 
 of horses, not including ponies, seventeen breeds of cattle, eleven 
 breeds of swine, and fourteen breeds of sheep, with all of which 
 a man must be more or less familiar before he can lay any claim 
 to being an expert in the field of animal industry. 
 
 In the field of applied sciences, the changes have been no 
 less profound. When the men who are now teaching the science 
 of agriculture were in college, it was taught as a demonstrated 
 scientific truth that mankind, in the no very distant future, must 
 disappear from the face of the globe for lack of nitrogen in the 
 soil. We know better now. So completely has this better 
 
53 
 
 knowledge been accepted and acted upon in agricultural opera- 
 tions that we have almost forgotten that we ever thought dif- 
 ferently. 
 
 The year the speaker entered college, Professor Burrill dis- 
 covered the cause of pear blight. Pear blight still continues on 
 its way but how immensely has the horizon of our knowledge 
 concerning plant and animal diseases widened. Not only have 
 agricultural and horticultural operations been greatly modified 
 but the practice of human and veterinary medicine have been 
 revolutionized, and with it all, the mind of the human race seems 
 to have expanded; reason has taken the place of superstitution. 
 
 The establishment in 1888 of experiment stations in each of 
 the states has furnished a fountain from which is flowing knowl- 
 edge recognized to be of the highest importance to agriculture. 
 Knowledge which now has some semblance at least of scientific 
 accuracy. Knowledge which is as accurate as can be expected 
 when we consider the great difficulty of the subject. The effect 
 of this progress of which but a hint has been given is that little 
 that is taught today of technical agriculture was taught fifteen 
 years ago. 
 
 It is necessary to remember that the old type of classical 
 college required only a building of moderate dimensions, and a 
 department therein for equipment, a desk, a few chairs, a pointer, 
 some chalk, and a number of erasers. Thirty years ago, the 
 necessity jf equipment for the teaching of the pure sciences was 
 but little recognized. The necessity for a fairly equipped chem- 
 ical laboratory was indeed understood. A herbarium for the 
 botanist, a few snakes and other specimens in alcohol for the 
 zoologist, a number of cork lined boxes for the entomologist, a 
 small collection of minerals and stones for the geologist, a mani- 
 kin and a few bones for the physiologist was about all that was 
 thought necessary. When it came to the department of agricul- 
 ture, a few samples of grain, mostly worm eaten, a collection of 
 patent office models, mostly of machines, which had never been 
 used because of their visionary character, a few framed prints 
 portraying animals of impossible conformation or in impossible 
 attitudes, and a so-called model farm was considered the sine 
 que non for an equipment. A properly equipped farm is, indeed, 
 a desirable adjunct to an ideally equipped college of agriculture, 
 but other things were more essential. A farm, however, to 
 
54 
 
 serve the highest purpose of instruction to say nothing of ex- 
 perimentation cannot be made a model for a farmer to follow any 
 more than a university machine shop can be made a model for a 
 shoe factory. 
 
 Just as the teaching of the sciences has been found more ex- 
 pensive than the teaching of classics, so the teaching of the ap- 
 plied sciences has been found more expensive than the teaching 
 of abstract science. And of all applied sciences, the teaching of 
 agriculture has been found to be vastly the most expensive and 
 it must, in the nature of the case, continue so. It is only during 
 the past decade that the movement for the proper equipment of 
 the colleges of agriculture has taken tangible form. The great 
 state of Illinois has felt this movement and has come bravely to 
 the front with the structures we are dedicating today, and with 
 the equipment so soon promised will be second to none in the 
 Union. 
 
 It may not be out of place here to inquire why agriculture 
 has been slow in coming to its own. It is because of the diffi- 
 culty of the problems involved. The political economist has 
 long ago divided people engaged in gainful occupations into four 
 or five classes. Leaving aside the work of the serving class, the 
 work of the world is divided into three classes, viz., changes in 
 substance or natural products from which results agriculture 
 and mining; changes of form, from which results manufactur- 
 ing; and change of place, from which results trading and com- 
 merce. Did it ever occur to you that of all these great classes, 
 agriculture alone deals with living things? Why has the cause 
 of pear blight and the metabolism of nitrogen in the clover plant 
 been so long hidden from the human understanding? It was 
 first necessary to invent a high power microscope. 
 
 Like the [water that flows to the sea, civilization has pro- 
 ceeded along lines of least resistance. The science of agricul- 
 ture, dealing as it does with living things, has, because of the 
 difficulty of understanding the processes of life, lagged behind 
 those occupations depending for their best development upon a 
 knowledge of the physical sciences. The science of agriculture 
 will not reach its highest development until the problem of life 
 has been solved. No man dare prophesy the heights which it 
 may yet attain. 
 
 The study of agriculture, therefore, presents problems 
 
55 
 
 worthy of the most g-ifted and hig-hly educated young- man. A 
 four-years’ course in ag-riculture, or in any of its specialized 
 branches, today g-ives a man not only a training- ag-riculture 
 but in and by ag-riculture. It g-ives him such a professional 
 training- as to fit him as a bread winner of the hig-hest type. 
 When he has finished, he is fitted to do something- somebody 
 wants done. He has not only received a theoretical knowledg-e 
 of the laws of nature, but such a practical knowledg-e of their 
 application that he can successfully use them on the farm, in the 
 dairy, in the orchard, or in the g-arden. Not only are the hand 
 and the eye trained, but throug-h the hand and eye the mind is 
 trained. In other words, the course in ag-riculture offers a sound 
 education. Its g-raduates are not only educated farmers, but 
 educated men. 
 
 I am not ready to assert that the mental drill received from 
 instruction by technical ag-riculture, as at present taug-ht, is 
 equal to that received by the study of Greek, Latin, or Calculus. 
 It is freely recog-nized that the colleg-es of ag-riculture have larg-^e 
 opportunities in this reg-ard. The men who are teaching- these 
 subjects have had literally to dig- their subject out of the ground 
 and have, in some cases, been so absorbed in acquiring knowl- 
 edge that they have neglected the pedagogic methods of impart- 
 ing it. But I am ready to assert that the young men who are 
 now being graduated from the courses in agriculture are, let the 
 reasons be what they may, the peers of the graduates of any of 
 the courses of our land grant colleges and their subsequent 
 work is showing them to be such. 
 
 I am conscious that I have used a great deal of time in order 
 to Say to the young man, that if you want a sound education, if 
 you want an education that will fit you for a useful life, if you 
 want an education worthy of the mental capacity of an Edison 
 or a Pasteur, you can find it in a course in agriculture. If it 
 will not serve your purpose in after life, do not take it. There 
 are plenty of other courses that will give you as good a training. 
 The variety of courses in the state universities is such as to suit 
 the most fastidious. But if you are interested in the problems 
 underlying agriculture, if your artistic instinct leads you to pre- 
 fer producing, living, pulsating models of plants and animals, 
 instead of reproducing their counterfeit on canvas, if your scien- 
 tific bent is towards organic rather than metallurgic chemistry, 
 
56 
 
 for botany rather than physics, if your business ability lies in 
 trading- in stock rather than in trading- in stocks, if your love for 
 excitement is better satisfied in the show ring than in the court 
 room, you need not avoid a course in agriculture, because it 
 lacks a training worthy of the highest mind. The Dean of your 
 General Faculty years ago said that the digestive juice of edu- 
 cation is interest. The fact that almost without exception those 
 who have studied agriculture have been interested, not to say 
 enthusiastic, has, in no small measure, added to their success. 
 
 But granting all this, after the education is acquired, will 
 it produce bread and meat, and if so, is it sordid ? Does it pre- 
 sent an opportunity for a career, or will the possessors remain 
 hewers of wood and drawers of water ? 
 
 This is just as good a place as any to behead once more that 
 hydra-headed monster, which asserts that agricultural colleges 
 educate boys away from the farm. I happen to have the statis- 
 tics concerning the alumni of a college of agriculture and of its 
 ex-students since 1892. These statistics concern 399 young men 
 who have spent more or less time in studying agriculture. The 
 occupation of 60 is unknown. One hundred and seventy-four are 
 farmers, gardeners, and dairymen, 48 are creamery operators, 
 butter, and cheese makers, 8 are farm superintendents or em- 
 ployees, 28 are employees of colleges or stations or of the United 
 States Department of Agriculture, 3 are editors of agricultural 
 newspapers, and 19 are students in other colleges. The total num- 
 ber in all other occupations is 59. Of the 320 men who have 
 settled occupation, 261 or 82 per cent., are engaged in agricult- 
 ural pursuits. I am repeating no set phrase, when I say that 
 those who have become farmers are not onl}' generally succeed- 
 ing from a pecuniary standpoint but they are becoming leaders 
 in the intellectual, social, and political life of their respective 
 communities. While a course in agriculture is not to be recom- 
 mended as a means of political prosperity, yet it is probably quite 
 within the truth to say that there is no surer road to political 
 leadership even than success upon the farm by capable, broad- 
 minded, well educated men. Three of the farmers in the last 
 Illinois legislature were trained in agriculture at the University 
 of Illinois and their alma mater has had no reason to be ashamed 
 of them. 
 
 Particularly is success coming to those who have completed a 
 
57 
 
 four-year course. Many young- men have taken a one or two-year 
 course in agriculture and in some institutions a winter term course^ 
 and they have gone to farming and have had a fair measure 
 of success depending much, of course, upon their previous 
 training. Many earnest and successful men have been trained 
 in this way. There is, however, no greater error than to be- 
 lieve that if a man is going to farm a one or two-year’s course is 
 sufficient, while if he is going to be a teacher or an experimen- 
 ter, he must have a thorough undergraduate and post-graduate 
 training. Farming, in its several branches, is no exception to 
 the rule that the greater the ability, the greater the success. 
 Neither is there any question that many lines of farming now 
 offer opportunities for the talented. The fact is that a training 
 cannot be too severe for the man who intends to farm. No man 
 needs a rigid training more; in no occupation may such training 
 be made to count for more. A young man to be perfectly safe 
 of success upon the farm should take a thorough under-graduate 
 study, a year’s post-graduate work, and then he should spend 
 about three years as superintendent of a farm for some one else, 
 or as a professor of agriculture in some land grant college. 
 He, then, becomes a trained agriculturist, worth a respectable 
 compensation whether in business for himself or on salary for 
 others. What engineer, what lawyer, what doctor, or what pro- 
 fessor of literature or art considers himself able to win success 
 in his calling without an equal training ? I tell you, ladies and 
 gentlemen, that if the farms of the United States do not furnish 
 worthy opportunities for men thus trained, the cause of agri- 
 cultural education is well nigh hopeless. I am equally con- 
 vinced that the farms of the United States do furnish such op- 
 portunities. By no means all the five million farms of the 
 United States, but a large enough per cent of them to furnish 
 opportunity for all the gradutes that the colleges are likely to 
 send out in the next twenty-five years. 
 
 Men of capital and business judgment are beginning to 
 appreciate that the farms of this nation are distinctly limited 
 and their money is being rapidly invested therein. Already 
 those who have to do with such things are finding that there is 
 a demand for persons to make the capital thus invested 
 productive. 
 
 It is by no means asserted that a man must be college bred 
 
58 
 
 to be a man of ability or a superiorly trained ag-riculturist. 
 Such a claim would be both untrue and foolish. It is claimed, 
 however, that a colleg’e training- is more necessary to a thoroug-h 
 knowledg-e of his business than to a merchant, a banker, or a 
 manufacturer. It is asserted, moreover, that a colleg-e training- 
 is a short road to success. If you are in Chicag-o and want to 
 get to New York, you may take a train or you may walk. Under 
 present economic and social conditions, you had better take the 
 modern method even if you have to borrow the money. As a 
 final word on this phase of the subject, let me say if you cannot 
 afford to prepare yourself to be a farmer, do not farm. Enter 
 some other business where the business itself will teach you 
 success. Far better be a corner g-rocer or a street car conductor. 
 
 As already sug-g-ested, numerous opportunities are now open 
 to trained agriculturists aside from the business of farming. 
 Of the 320 young men mentioned a moment ago, thirty-six have 
 graduated from the four-year courses of the college of agricul- 
 ture during the past six years. Seventeen are on salaries within 
 their proper professional field. The average length of time that 
 they have been out of college is about two and one-half years 
 and their average compensation will be this year about one 
 thousand dollars. The illustrations given are from a single 
 institution and the particular examples are used because the 
 information is at hand. 
 
 The United States Department of Agriculture at Washing- 
 ton is also a good illustration of opportunities open to graduates 
 of agricultural colleges, both in the way of positions and further 
 training, — the latter quite as important as the former. Within 
 the present fiscal year twenty-two college graduates have been 
 appointed in a single division of this Department at salaries 
 ranging from $480.00 to $1,200.00. As indicative of the rapidity 
 of promotion, it is stated that ten recent graduates, who entered 
 the Department last year and this year at $480.00 per annum are 
 soon to be advanced to $1000.00, while within the year an equal 
 numbei of similar promotions will follow. Another Division, it 
 is authoritively stated, will need the coming year fifteen to 
 twenty young men, preferably graduates of agricultural colleges. 
 The Department of Agriculture at Washington is rapidly becom- 
 ing a great post-graduate school of Agriculture with scholar- 
 ships and opportunities for rapid promotion. The Department 
 
59 
 
 has just sent graduates of agricultural colleg’es thus trained to 
 Hawaii and Porto Rico to take charge of experiment stations 
 there at a salary of $3,000.00 each, one of whom, Frank D. 
 Gardner, was of the class of 1891 of the University of Illinois. 
 
 After all, however, past and even present opportunities are 
 important only as they indicate the future. The important 
 question to a young man choosing a career is not so much what 
 is the present opportunity but what are the future prospects. 
 Not how well will he begin his career, but how well will he end 
 it. The average expectancy of a man who has reached the age 
 of twenty-one is forty-one and one-half years. The question in 
 preparing for the work of life is not alone, therefore, what is the 
 opportunity today or what will it be four years hence when the 
 young man has completed a course in college, but what is it 
 going to be during the next forty years. 
 
 For 250 years we have called ourselves an agricultural people. 
 While it is certainly true that we have been and still are, though 
 in less degree, an agricultural people, our chief problems have 
 not been those of the agriculturist. They have been chiefly the 
 problems of the engineer. We have, it is true, made some real 
 progress in the science of living things. Our animal and vege- 
 table forms have been improved and thereby has the vigor and 
 healthfulness of the human race been increased. I would, in no 
 way minimize the importance of this improvement, but, after all, 
 it has never become a serious question. Much of this improve- 
 ment has been unconscious and much of it has been done by 
 people who found pleasure in doing it. The large problems 
 that have required serious thought have been the mechanical 
 means of subduing nature, of planting, harvesting, manufactur- 
 ing, and marketing the crop. At no time in its history scarcely 
 has the nation suffered for food, clothing, and shelter. At no 
 time have these things been more abundant than in the past gen- 
 eration. Nature has been so prodigal that the surplus to the pro- 
 ducer has been enormous provided only that the mechanical means 
 could be obtained to handle her bounty. Harvesting machinery, 
 including the cotton gin, and steam transportation have not only 
 unlocked nature’s wealth but so cheapened the cost of produc- 
 tion as to allow a large part of the population to busy itself 
 with other matters of the highest importance to the present and 
 future welfare of the race. Only during the present generation 
 
60 
 
 have we known two of the greatest of these agencies, viz., the 
 self binder and the transcontinental railways. The result has 
 been that we of the present generation have enjoyed comforts 
 and luxuries beyond the fondest dreams of former generations. 
 At no time has our prosperity been greater apparently than at 
 the present moment. However, ungracious as it may seem to 
 say it, it is to be feared that we have been so busy talking about 
 our prosperity that we may not have noticed the slight quiver 
 that preceeds an earthquake. 
 
 It has recently been my privilege to discuss at some length 
 the outlook for agriculture in this country, and were there time 
 such an array of fac ts and figures could be presented as to be, I 
 believe, both convincing and impressive. Two hundred and 
 fifty years ago, the Puritans started in to subdue a continent. 
 “ By 1800 the United States nowhere touched the Gulf of 
 Mexico, and nowhere crossed the Mississippi,” much less had our 
 agriculture and our civilization reached these limits. By 1850, 
 we had acquired our present continental territorial limits, 
 Alaska excepted, but the great west and northwest was agri- 
 culturally yet an undiscovered country. 
 
 In 1875, Central Iowa, at present one of the finest agricultural 
 areas in the world, was a wilderness. Since that time we have 
 swept the continent with our agricultural operations. We have 
 rolled up against the Pacific coast with such force that the 
 shock has sent us thousands of miles across the sea. 
 
 The elements that have entered into the problem have been 
 a great fertile, treeless, and easily subdued plain, in a climate 
 admirably adapted to cereal production, one of which, maize, 
 produces twice the food per acre of any cereal known to the 
 civilized nations before the discovery of America; improved 
 machinery, including the steel plow, the mower, the self binder, 
 and the thresher; transcontinental steam transportation; and a 
 people of high intelligence and great energy. 
 
 Do all the elements in the problem still exist? Let us look 
 a moment. The animals upon the farms and ranches of the 
 United States increased with such rapidity between 1875 and 
 1892 that in the latter year we had not only the largest number 
 of animals but much the largest number in proportion to popu- 
 lation we have had in forty years. 
 
 Now look at the other side of the shield. Since that time 
 
61 
 
 the animals upon the farms and ranches of the United States 
 have decreased with such almost lig-htning- rapidity that in 1900, 
 eig-ht years later, we had not only less but much less live stock 
 in proportion to population than we have had at any time in 
 forty years. 
 
 The increase in acreage of cultivated crops between 1870 and 
 1890 was likewise greater than the increase in population. The 
 increase in acreage of cultivated crops in the past thirty years 
 is greater than was the total acreage in 1870. In other words, 
 we have subdued more of nature to the uses of man since 1870 
 than we had been able to do in the two centuries of our history 
 hitherto. In the last thirty years, we have doubled our popula- 
 tion and we have more than doubled the area of our cultivated 
 crops. Shall we be producing two blades of grass in the place 
 of one that grows today when the population has again doubled? 
 Or will our inability to produce the two blades prevent popula- 
 tion from doubling? 
 
 It is not here asserted that the two blades of grass will be 
 produced. I believe, however, it is possible to do so, but if it is 
 to be done, it must be done in a vastly different way than it has 
 been done in the past thirty years. The problem will be vastly 
 different. The problems will be solved by those who have 
 studied organic chemistry and the sciences relating to life rather 
 than by those who have studied mathematics and the laws of 
 physics. In short the problems of the future will be the prob- 
 lems of the agriculturist rather than, as in the past, the prob- 
 lemes of the engineers. The great engineering professions need 
 no defense from me and I will certainly not be misunderstood by 
 this comparison as minimizing their importance or that of any 
 other form of useful knowledge to the welfare of future genera- 
 tions. 
 
 Is there any immediate evidence that the cultivated area 
 may fail to keep up with the increasing population ? The evi- 
 dence is found in the statistics of the Department of Agriculture 
 at Washington. The cultivated area has not actually decreased 
 as has the number of farm animals, but the area has decreased 
 in proportion to population about ten per cent since 1890 and is 
 now less in proportion to population than it has been at any 
 time in twenty years. 
 
 But how can this be ? Regard for a moment our unpa r 
 
62 
 
 alleled prosperity. If this is the effect of a decrease in acreag-e, 
 by all means let us have some more decrease. The reply is 
 simply that the seasons have been propitious. Not since the 
 last half of the decade of the seventies has this country had 
 such yields per acre as during- the years 1895-99. In no other 
 five years since has the farmer received such large returns in 
 crops for labor expended. A single illustration will indicate what 
 this really means. The average yield of corn per acre for the 
 five years, 1895-99 inclusive, was 3.2 bushels more than for the 
 five years just proceeding that period. This is an increase of 14 
 per cent. This means an annual increase of two hundred and 
 fifty million bushels of corn from the same acreage — if used in 
 place of wheat more than half enough to bread the nation. All 
 the golden metal mined in the same period in the United States 
 would not begin to buy to-day merely the increase in this golden 
 grain, — the gift of prodigal nature. 
 
 It would be indeed pleasing in this connection to relate that 
 this increase in yield had resulted from the investigations of our 
 experiment stations and the teachings of our agricultural col- 
 leges. To make such a statement would be to make the wish 
 father of the thought. Doubtless such agencies may have mod- 
 ified slightly and, when the teachings of the stations are put into 
 general practice, will largely affect the result, but as surely as 
 the rains fall and the frosts come we may expect a series of 
 unpropitious seasons. Some fine morning we will wake up to 
 find the scare head of our “No breakfast is complete without it” 
 newspaper have been changed and that accounts of wars and 
 industrial combinations have been relegated to the second page. 
 
 It is well known to scientists that the existence of all 
 animal life and hence of the human race upon the globe is 
 dependent upon the fixation of carbon through the influence of 
 the sun’s rays. It is also well understood that the nation’s 
 material prosperty is due to those mechanical inventions that 
 have made available to recent generations the stored up fertility 
 of the soil and the stored up carbon in coal, oil, and gas. How 
 the conquest of Asia, Africa, and South America may affect the 
 world at large no one can with certainty predict, but it seems 
 reasonably certain that so far as the United States is concerned 
 trapping carbon or bottling sunshine is to be a much greater 
 problem than it has been in the past. 
 
63 
 
 Does this mean that famine stares us in the face? Does the 
 fate of Eg'jpt, Greece, and Rome await us? Such an inference 
 is by no means necessary. I am no pessimist. The human race 
 has solved its problems as it has come to them with varying- de- 
 g-rees of success, but generally for the better. During the past 
 two hundred and fifty years, this nation has solved some of the 
 greatest problems of the race. The nation has greater problems 
 to solve than it has yet encountered, but it was never before so 
 well able to solve them. We need have no hesitation rbout our 
 posterity. In all probabilities they will attend to tht^r affairs 
 better than we have attended to ours. All that is here asserted 
 is that during the coming generations, men will be needed who 
 have delved deeply into the sciences relating to life. The prob- 
 lem will not be so much the methods of harvesting, manufac- 
 turing, and marketing the one blade that now grows but rather 
 what are the life processes by which two blades may be made to 
 grow. To the men who have prepared themselves to solve these 
 problems of life will come the opportunities of the future. 
 
 It is curious to note how unconsciously conscious the nation 
 is concerning this matter. In the very years when its soil was 
 yielding her harvests most abundandtly. Congress passed laws 
 which have started the most stupendous enterprise for scientfic 
 reseach relating to the life and welfare of the nation that the 
 world has ever seen. The federal government this year appro- 
 priated for the work of its Department of Agriculture, including 
 the state experiment stations, over four and one-half million 
 dollars, to say nothing of the provisiondhat is made for teaching 
 or that is made by the several states to the same objects. Even 
 before there has come an apparently pressing demand for it, the 
 nation is deep into the work. 
 
 This, then, is the message which I bring to the young men 
 of today, — the nation’s workers of tomorrow. The Colleges of 
 Agriculture are teaching the sciences relating to life in a practi- 
 cal manner, so that one may become useful both to himself and t 
 mankind. It is an education for agriculture, hi agriculture, 
 hy agriculture. It is a sound education worthy of the d' 
 intellect. The present and the future demand men prepa 
 solve the greatest of problems, — the problems which concern 
 living things. Who knows why clay soils are sticky, and sandy 
 soils are not? Who can answer this fundamental fact with 
 
64 
 
 which the farmer is daily associated? Why can not a stalk of 
 Indian corn be successfully matured in a pot? Whoever answers 
 this, answer some of the fundamental but still unknown ques- 
 tions concerning- plant g-rowth. One acre in every three that is 
 plov^ed in the United States is planted to Indian corn. If all the 
 pig- iron mined in the United States had been made into steel 
 rails in the record breaking- year of 1899, they would not have 
 purchased the corn crop the same year. Yet each year one-fifth 
 of this g-reat crop is lost in the curing-. He who g-ives the rea- 
 sons and applies the remedy, will acquire fame and the g-ratitude 
 of his fellowmen. Neither may the value be placed upon the 
 results which may come from him who chang-es the chemical 
 composition of this beneficent g-rain. Of two cows treated 
 exactly alike as far as human endeavor is concerned, one will 
 produce 300 pounds of butter and the other 150 pounds. He 
 who solves this mystery will solve the mystery of the mysteries. 
 
 Notwithstanding- the improvement in labor saving- ma- 
 chinery, the g-reatest endeavor of the human race is still to pro- 
 duce food. If a penny saved is, a penny earned, what shall we 
 say of him who makes the potential energ-y of this vast force 
 more available. Three centuries ag-o, the yield of wheat in Eng- 
 land is said to have been not more than six bushels per acre. 
 The same soil is rained upon by the same rains and sunned by 
 the same sun, yet to-day the yield is thirty bushels. Who in this 
 country will point the way to sixty bushels of wheat instead of 
 twelve or one hundred bushels of corn instead of twenty-five? 
 
 The problems are unlimited but the greatest of them are yet 
 beyond the vision of man. To him who has prepared himself 
 to solve these life problems, will come the opportunities of the 
 future. The world waits for him. Its rewards will not be 
 meagre.