AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE 447 



My associates on the board at first were the venerable Judge John R. 

 Kellogg, of Alk^gau, and Hiram L. Miller, of Saginaw, both men of large 

 experience and sound judgment, and as an ex-oflficio member, the then 

 Superintendent of Public Instruction, Hon. Ira Mayhew; afterward my 

 colleagues were Hon, ^^'itter J. Baxter, of Jonesville, a man of energy 

 and practical wisdom, Hon. Edwin \\ illits, of Monroe, who recently 

 served with signal acceptance as president of this institution, also in 

 Congress, and as Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, at Washington; and 

 Hon. John M. Gregory, the Superintendent of Public Instruction who suc- 

 ceeded Mr. Mayhew, and who afterward presided with distinction over 

 the Illinois Industrial University, and was United States Civil Service 

 (Commissioner. In the facultv were Professors Abbot and Pisk, Ihe 

 former of whom suceeded President Williams in charge of the institution, 

 and discharged his duties with notable success, while the latter has 

 acquired deserved distinction as president of Albion College. Professors 

 T^"eeks and Uolmes were the other members of the faculty, both able and 

 popular instructors and efficient promoters of the welfare of the institu- 

 tion. Not belonging to that body of pioneer instructors, but among those 

 who soon aferward succeeded them was "the wizard," who, thirty-four 

 years ago fascinated the students of the infant college by the wondrous 

 magic of the chemical laboratory, and now, after more than a third of a 

 century has passed, he is "the wizard" still, whose connection with this^ 

 ihstitution will ever be an integral part of its history. 



Michigan's debt to educators. 



Tappan, Welch, Frieze, Boise, (Jregory, Winchell, Stone, Mayhew, Fair- 

 field, "Prof." "SA'illiams, Hosford, and among the younger men, Watson, 

 Estabrook, Sill, Tyler, and others were known beyond the boundaries of 

 their own State; but the educators of that period did not monopolize the 

 fame which our commonwealth was to gain from its contributions to in- 

 tellectual work or to the adaptation of literature and science to the uses 

 of every day life. Proud as we have reason to be of the men and of the 

 achievements that at an earlier day served to bring Michigan to the 

 world's front for her harmonious and complete educational system, there 

 has since been a constant movement forward and upward, showing that 

 the later generation is faithfully and wisely building on the tundatiou 

 they laid. This is an age of scientific inquiry; it is an age when men are 

 passing out from the slavary of tradition; it is an age when knowledge 

 is sought for practical uses, and when higher education is claiming its 

 place in the workshop, in the counting room, on the farm, and in the 

 kitchen; it is an age when eduction is needed to "form the common 

 mind," not confined to the exclusive few; and this institution pre-eminent- 

 ly stands for the age to which we belong; and as one of the best represent- 

 atives of the high water mark which the tide of public education has 

 reached, and as one of the most approved types which this education is 

 able to present in the closing years of the nineteenth century. And it 

 is especially gratifying that this superior type of education, in this college 

 as well as in the university, is now provided for women as well as for 

 men. 



