430 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



the committee glanced around the room and smilingly answered, ''I think 

 there are nine such men in this room." 



The committee reported their plan for the entire separation of college 

 and experiment station, and the members urged on the Hoor of the con- 

 vention the impropriety^ of any person holding otiice both in college and 

 station — that no man could serve two masters, etc. 



President Willits argued that the experiment station was the corollary 

 of the college— that the two were parts of a whole in the educational sys- 

 tem of the state; that the theoretical instruction in the class room should 

 be carried into the laboratory, the farm and the garden, there to be 

 verified or refuted, and the results then given to the public in the bulle- 

 tins of the station. So clearly did he present this logical connection of 

 the college and the experiment station that the convention rejected the 

 plan of the committee by a decisive vote, and adopted the plan of co- 

 operative work carried out in this College and in most of the agricultural 

 colleges of this country. 



As evidence of the favor with which Michigan regards this combined 

 work of college and station I simply call attention to the fact that the 

 yearly issue of twelve bulletins of 20,000 each scarcely supplies the 

 popular demand. There is no part of the work of the College that brings 

 it so completely in touch with tlie people of the State as the investiga- 

 tions and bulletins of the Experiment Station. In starting this work 

 and giving it the right directicyi, President Willits did much for the State 

 and the whole country. 



THE DEPARTMENT OF MECHANIC ARTS. 



This institution was originally established as the Agricultural School, 

 and for many years the trend of instruction was entirely in the line of 

 agriculture in its broad sense. The ilorrill act of 1862 provided a fund 

 ''for the endowment, support and maintenance of at least one college 

 where the leading object shall be to teach such branches of learning as 

 are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts." When President 

 Willits took charge of the College he announced that it was time that the 

 mechanic arts should come to the front on a par with agriculture. His 

 aim was to add the mechanical course to the College curriculum without 

 impairing the eflSciency or lowering the attendance of the agricultural 

 course. The results justified his assumption, for there was an increased 

 attendance' in the agricultural course at the same time with the influx 

 of a large number in the mechanical course. The average attendance for 

 five years in the agricultural course before this change was 193 ; the aver- 

 age attendance on the same course for five years after the mechanical 

 course was introduced was 227. an average gain of 34 for this course, 

 while the attendance on the mechanical course reached an average of 

 120 when it reached all the College classes. The average total attend- 

 ance by five year periods passed from 193 to 328. This shows an advance 

 all along the line, and not the cripjiling of one course to build up a rival. 



President Willits took hold of this work of building up the department 

 of mechanic arts with energy. He visited the shops in Detroit and other 

 manufacturing cities to place before this constituency the advantages of 

 the course of scientific and practical training at the College and inviting 

 the shop boys to secure the advantages here offered. There was soon a 



