COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS. 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS, AUGUST 14, 1896. 

 INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION THE NEED OF THE COMMONWEALTH. 



BY WILLIAM KENT. 



Shortly after my acceptance of the invitation of your President to 

 make an address at this commencement, he sent me a copy of the cata- 

 logue of the College, and at the beginning of the descriptive matter I 

 found this sentence: ^'The constitution of Michigan requires that the 

 legislature shall * * * provide for the establishment of an agri- 

 cultural school * * * for instruction in agriculture and the natural 

 sciences connected therewith." — [Revised Constitution 1850, Art. XIII, 



§11.] 



These words fill me with profound respect and admiration for the 

 makers of the revised constitution of this State. It seems remarkable 

 that as early as the year 1850 they should have foreseen the need of the 

 State for such a college, and that they should have been so strongly 

 impressed with that need that they incorporated a provision for the 

 college in the constitution. And although five years passed befon? the 

 legislature obeyed the mandate of the constitution by passing the act 

 for the establishment of the college, and two years more elapsod before 

 the college was opened, the date, 1857, was still so early that it enables 

 Michigan to claim that it has the oldest college of its kind in the country. 

 That date was five .years earlier than that of the Morrill land grant act, 

 passed by the United States congress in 1862, which has been the foun- 

 dation of the agricultural colleges and of the departments of agriculture 

 and mechanical arts in the universities in most of the other states, and 

 which has largely supplemented the endowment of this College. 



Both the provision of the Michigan constitution of 1850 and the Morrill 

 act of 1862 were far in advance of the average sentiment of the people. 

 It often so happens in legislative enactments. The makers of the constitu- 

 tion of the United States, the grandest political instrument ever framed, 

 builded so well that their far-seeing wisdom is a matter of astonishment 

 to us today, but it was with the utmost difficulty that their work was 

 adopted by the states, and only the pressure of necessity compelled its 

 adoption. It was far in advance of the average wisdom of the people. 



