LECTURES AND ESSAYS READ AT INSTITUTES. 369 



INAUGURATIOZsT. 



On the IGth of June, 1857, the Governor and several officers of the State 

 government, the officers elect of the institution, and a large concourse of citi- 

 zens from various parts of the State, and some sixty-one students (increased to 

 ninty-seven before the close of the term) ready to form the first class being 

 gathered, the college was formally dedicated by the Board of Education to 

 the purposes for which it was designed. 



The Hon. H. L. Miller, president of the Board, first made a few remarks. 

 He closed with saying, "I deem it peculiarly appropriate to recognize the 

 guardianship of that one Great Being, who is before all human powers." 

 Kev. George Willard, member of the Board, then read the third chapter of 

 Proverbs ; prayer was offered, and the Hon. John R. Kellogg, the senior mem- 

 ber of the Board, then delivered, in an appropriate speech, the institution and 

 farm into the charge of the president and faculty, who had been previously 

 chosen. 



The Hon. Joseph R. Williams, of Constantine, president of the college, then 

 delivered his inaugural address, a discourse wise, forcible, and elegant. He 

 spoke of the lack of institutions which, taking students directly from the com- 

 mon schools, and omitting studies purely literary and classical, carried them 

 farther than the university in the application of modern science to the practi- 

 cal business of life, especially agricultural life. He says: 



"That the agricultural masses have felt keenly this great want is evidenced 

 by the simultaneous creation of agricultural societies and periodicals, and the 

 craving for more abundant knowledge. Colleges are springing from the same 

 necessity. Kew York and Pennsylvania are maturing, and two or three other 

 States are taking the initiatory steps towards establishing Agricultural colleges. 

 Here, on the very margin of the cultivated portions of our country, where the 

 'forests primeval' are just vanishing before the encroachments of civilization, 

 the youthful and vigorous State of Michigan, first among her sister States, 

 dedicates this institution to the instruction of men who are devoted exclusively 

 to the cultivation of the earth. Established on no precedent, it is alike a 

 pioneer in the march of men and march of mind. It is peculiarly fit that 

 such an enterprise should be founded on the confines of the country, which a 

 native poet, Whittier, so gushingly describes : 



"'The rudiments of empire here, 

 Are plastic yet and warm, 

 , The chaos of a mighty world 



Is rounding into form.' 



" The elements of the institution around us are rough and crude, but even in 

 the embryo, we recognize an enlightened forecast that would do honor to those 

 venerable commonwealth which have stamped their indelible impress on the 

 history of mankind." 



Mr. Williams spoke of the objections that would be raised to the institution. 

 They would call it an experiment, and demand results, before they were will- 

 ing to afford aid or sympathy. They would object to its cost and would leave 

 it unendowed, and subject to the caprice of successive legislatures. These and 

 other sentences read more like history than like prophecy, as they were. He 

 spoke of the hard times that prevailed, of the virgin forest in which opera- 

 tions were to be begun, and that we have no guides to follow ; valuable hints 

 might be derived from European schools, but only hints. 



President Williams proceeds to discuss the branches of study that should be 



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