COMMENCEMENT, JUNE, 1898. 641 



England the leader in matters maritime. Our schools at West Point and 

 Annapolis are governmental colleges and were the first break in the old 

 tradition. But they were a most significant one. Their establishment, 

 their popularity, their success, the standing of their graduates in the 

 community,, broke the ice of conversation which had crusted around the 

 idea, that on the one side stood the cultured few with an inheritance in 

 literature, in theology, in jurisprudence, in philosophy, and in a narrow 

 range of science, while over against them upon the other side were all 

 those who were in touch with the realities of existence, the producers, the 

 creators of things. 



We must make up our minds which of the two views we shall hold, or 

 rather to which of two desirable things we shall give the preference. We 

 can regard our college or university as a center of personal culture, or 

 we may regard it as an emporium of learning. Me may combine these 

 two ideas in one place, as in your own State University, but it is but 

 rarely that it is given to one man to combine in himself the best results 

 of the two ideals. The two objects cannot be well sought together or at 

 the same time; usually they are sought in succession — and happy the 

 man who by frugality or industry or by fortune can have the opportunity 

 laid before him. 



For while we would like to believe otherwise, and to fancy like the 

 ostrich with its eyes concealed that a disliked 'something is not near 

 because we do not see it for the moment, yet in fairness it must be ad- 

 mitted that taking a country over or a State, it must be a fortunate few 

 for whom the trend of their education does not have to have an im- 

 mediate and practical bearing upon their life-work as bread-winners or 

 as producers for the benefit of others dependent upon them- It is the 

 time required in proper preparation beforehand and in the postponement 

 of the beginnings of productive work which form the barriers, and not 

 our theories, our wishes, or even our ambitions. All men are born free 

 and equal before the law, but all men are not equal in endowment, and 

 to try and make them so is a rainbow-dream. 



How, then, is this acquirement to be met in a modern state? I answer 

 the Michigan Agricultural College exists to meet it. What I believe in 

 our modern conditions is the great need of the community is the proper 

 and effective education of the many who must be producers in their 

 several industrial vocations, that the capacities and resources of the 

 State may be effectually utilized. For comfort in a community and the 

 prosperity of which wealth is the measure is to a degree a matter of 

 relation. Our ideals of natural prosperity are not those of the pre- 

 revolutionary period in France, or even of some parts of Europe today — 

 where there is unnecessary luxury and idleness for a few and after a 

 great gayj, a dispirited, discontented incapable many who are so near 

 starvation that but a few days or even hours of sickness or inability to 

 work will land them there. Or, to put the idea otherwise, we may 

 measure our wealth and our prosperity in a state by comparing the con- 

 dition as to comfort and outward civilization with us, or the measure of 

 privation which must be endured by the most poorly paid grade of labor, 

 with the same class in some other community. In other words it is not 

 the few, but the many who are the index of prosperity. It is the amount 

 on deposit in your savings banks which measures the intervals between 

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