446 STATK BOARD OF AGRICULTURE 



quite different from what it is now. At that time, such colleges as Albion, 

 Kalamazoo, Olivet and Hillsdale had not abandoned the idea of securing 

 public aid, in some indirect way, and wore therefore watchful of any un- 

 dertaking which was likely to make their efforts more difficult. 



SOME EAKLY REMINISCENCES. 



These several antagonisms have, however, been steadily overcome. It 

 certainly required wise foresight and more courage for the legislature 

 of lSo5 to decide tluit the time had come to take up the duty imposed by 

 the constitution of 1850. which declared that "the legislature shall en- 

 courage the promotion of intellectual, scientific and agricultural improve- 

 ment, and shall as soon as practicable, provide for the establishment 

 of an agricultural school." It was fortunate that Michigan had then in 

 the chief executive chair a man possessing the broad conception, the en- 

 lightened statesmanship and strong purpose of Kinsley S. Bingham. He 

 stands conspicuous in the honored list of those governors of our State 

 who were fanners; and the history of this institution cannot be rightly 

 written Avithout awaiding him a high place among its founders and the 

 guardians of its infancy. While the institution was supervis< d by the 

 State Board of Education, on which the voters of Michigan had the 

 temerity to place myself as much the youngest member, we had Governor 

 Biuulijiin as onv wisest and most efiicient Jidviser. 



The board chose for the first president of the college, the Hon. Joseph 

 R. Williams, who had acquired a notice which may be said to have become 

 national, for his forcible and eloquent appeals for the application of 

 science to agriculture. During his presidency, much w^as done toward 

 giving definite shape to an experiment concerning which conflicting views 

 were held as to its real jjurpose, whether the college should be chiefly a 

 manual labor school, or a place devoted to studies which exclusively 

 relate to agriculture, or a general seminary of all higher learning. These 

 conflicting views have been prevalent from the beginning, but were then 

 much less fully harmonized than now. In securing this harmony, Pres-^ 

 ident Williams and his colleagues in the faculty had a delicate and ditti- 

 cult task, and the se(]uel has shown how well they acquitt-ed themselves 

 in its performance. 



The Board of Education had direction of the college for four years^ 

 and by its own request, the legislature placed it in charge of the State 

 Board of Agriculture under whose management it has since successfully 

 continued. The former board was then, as it is at present, of rectangular 

 shape, but it is to be hoped that its present members in their manage- 

 ment of the Normal School escape from some of the embarrassments 

 experienced by their predecessors; as I recall that in the spring of 1857 

 a Normal School question occasioned a dead-lock for a whole week, two 

 very firm and unyielding sides of the rectangle standing out with solid 

 resistance to the other two sides, but as we were serving without pay, 

 save for necessary expenses, the public treasury did not greatly suffer; 

 but the incident fully proved, as did the frequent experience of our Mich- 

 igan Supreme Court in those days with its four members, that a quad- 

 rilateral, how^ever useful it may be for defensive operations in military 

 campaigns, is not the most suitable device in the formation of courts or 

 administrative boards. 



