LECTURES AND ESSAYS EEAD AT INSTITUTES. 365 



The society appointed another committee, Mr. S. M. Bartlett, of Monroe, 

 to draft a bill, to present to the Legislature of 1855. The bill was put into 

 shape by the Hon. Isaac P. Christiancy, a townsman of Mr. Bartlett's, and 

 subsequently Chief Justice, and U. S. Senator, and was substantially the same 

 as afterwards became a law. 



1855. 



In his message to the Legislature January 4, 1855, Governor Kinsley S. 

 Bingham recommended the establishment of an Agricultural school, in the 

 following language : 



"The Constitution also declares that the Legislature shall, as soon as prac- 

 ticable, provide for the establishment of an Agricultural school. I respectfully 

 submit for your consideration, whether that practicable period has not already 

 arrived. Michigan is eminently an agricultural State, and the great source of 

 our dependence and wealth must ever be in the soil. It has been demonstrated 

 that its productions can be greatly increased by scientific cultivation. Our 

 citizens may indulge a just pride for their efforts in establishing schools for 

 intellectual and scientific improvement, but this most important branch of 

 education has been almost entirely neglected. It seems, therefore, highly 

 proper that provision should be made for instruction in everything that per- 

 tains to the art of husbandry, and practical and scientific agriculture. Our 

 efforts in this direction should never cease until our young men, engaged in 

 the useful and honorable occupation of farming, shall have received the same 

 high education as those designed for other professions." 



A bill for the establishment of the college was introduced into the House 

 and into the Senate. When the House bill came to its third reading, various 

 amendments as to location were made and rejected, and the bill was rejected 

 31 to 39 (Feb. 7). The Senate bill, however, fixing upon the vicinity of 

 Lansing as the location of the college, passed (Feb. 9) the Senate by a vote of 

 24 to 5, and the next day passed the House by the large vote of 52 to 13. 

 This bill is known as Act 'No. 130, approved Feb. 12, 1855. 



Governor Bingham was a warm friend of the measure, and of the college. 

 He took a prominent part in the exercises at the opening of the college (June 

 16, 1857), and a few mouths before his death, Oct., 1861, he sent to the col- 

 lege library as a token of his good will, a set of the works of John Adams, in 

 ten volumes. 



But to no one man is the college so much indebted as to Mr. John Clough 

 Holmes, the first secretary of the State Agricultural Society. Into the pro- 

 ject of establishment of a school of agriculture and horticulture he entered 

 ■with singular zeal and devotion. He collected information from all quarters, 

 and there were no features of the organic law which he had not discussed with 

 those who were best qualified to give advice, and none of them that do not 

 show his shaping hand. He was frequently at Lansing, conferring witli State 

 officers and Legislators on the subject, and spent nearly the whole legislative 

 winter of 1855 in Lansing, in diffusing a knowledge of the plan and awaken- 

 ing an interest in it, and this was done at his own private expense. Mr. 

 Holmes gave the college his personal assistance as professor of horticulture 

 during the years 1857, J 859, and 1861. Mr. Holmes is still, 1883, a not 

 infrequent and always welcome visitor at the college, and one of its warmest 

 friends. 



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