MEMORIAL EXERCISES. 



MEMOKIAL EXERCISES. 



TO THE MEMORY OF EDWIN WILLITS, PRESIDENT OF THE MICHI- 

 GAN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, 1SS5-1889. 



HELD IN THE COLLEGE CHAPEL, THURSDAY AFTERNOON, NOVEMBER 19, 189a 



A clean, strong successful life is a precious legacy to posterity, and we 

 cannot guard its proportions too jealously from the gnawing tooth of 

 time, or seek too anxiously to transmit it unimpaired in fullness, beauty 

 and truthfulness of form and lineament. 



The Agricultural College has always taken an especial interest in the 

 personality and pride in tlie career of the late Edwin Willits, and when 

 the sudden announcement of his death came it was intuitively felt that 

 we were only performing our official function toward the jouth in our 

 charge when we set apart a certain time for exercises in memory of him^ 

 and sought to put here in permanent form the loving tributes laid upon 

 his bier. 



The life work of Mr. Willits was Avide and varied. He was a successful 

 lawyer, an influential congressman, a resourceful and inspiring college 

 president, and a statesmanlike cabinet officer. At his bier were gathered 

 in common sorrow the student, the scientist, the man of alfairs, the 

 lawyer and the statesman. In our memorial exercises each of these 

 classes found a fitting representative, and each presented the character 

 as he saw it. It is a. uniform testimony that they bear to the intense 

 energy, the steady, cool, selfpossession, the read}' sympathy, the con- 

 tagious hopefulness, the sturdy courage and the resourcefulness of the 

 man they all loved. • 



RESUME OF DATES IN DR. WILLITS' LIFE. 



Dr. Willits was born in Otto, Cattaraugus county. New York, on April 

 24, 1830. He came to Michigan with his parents in 1887. He was grad- 

 uated from the University of Michigan in 1855, and for ten years there- 

 after he was editor of the Monroe Commercial. In 185G he began the 

 study of law, was admitted to the bar in 1858. In 1860 he became 

 prosecuting attorney of his county. For twelve years from 1862 he was 



