642 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



present comfort and imminent suffering when wage-earning must stop, 

 from sickness or temporary industrial derangement or from death. And 

 if therefore it be conceded that the education in such a college as this 

 is intended to make its students and graduates more capable of that his- 

 toric achievement of two blades of grass; or more capable of manufac- 

 turing a desirable article cheaply so as to bring its purchase within the 

 reach of a greater number of citizens, then 1 claim for it an economic 

 significance and a necessity for its existence in the commonwealth which 

 is not to be disputed. For it is to this point that I have been seeking 

 step by step to lead you. If I can impress upon you my argument, I 

 shall be well content. I recapitulate it in this form: 



1. A community is prosperous when it is busy and every one can find 

 paying work. 



2. A busy community earning money can afford to buy things, which 

 others have to sell. 



3. A community can only afford to be busy when it can produce its 

 products at a price less than these products can be brought in to it from 

 outside. 



4- Cheap production is a result of knowledge as to what is to be done 

 and how to do it, with a combination of industry, frugality and sound 

 judgment in the man who has the knowledge. , 



5. The technical school which furnishes both the knowledge and the 

 character training is the foundation of cheap production, on which rests 

 the busyness of the community on which rests its prosperity, its wealth, 

 its opportunities for wider culture, its happiness, its devotion to art and 

 aesthetic development, its realization of its highest ideals. 



To give point to these contentions may I be permitted an illustrative 

 story. 



In the neighborhood of the town of Union, S. C, farming laud had little 

 or no value and could scarcely be sold. The people were poor, there was 

 but little money in the community, and they did without things. It 

 occurred to a far-seeing mechanical engineer that if a cotton mill could 

 be erected in that place to avail of a water power which could be 

 erected in that place to avail of a water power which could be electrically 

 transmitted to the town, there would be at once created a call for labor to 

 operate the mill and it could dispose of its own product in its immediate 

 neighborhood at first, with a view to outer markets later. 



At present there are two mills, one having a pay roll of .f 15,000 a month, 

 and the smaller one of $5,000 a month. The $240,000 which comes into 

 that town in pay rolls and is distributed among the population is ex- 

 pended in (lie purchase of farm products and the necessities for the work- 

 ers, butter, eggs, cheese, meat and flour; land cannot now be bought, as it 

 is so excellent an investment in the neighborhood of the town, by reason 

 of its producing value, and an unhappy and discouraged community is a 

 busy and happy one, because ability to earn has been put within its reach. 



If my foregoing contentions are sound, they force upon us certain 

 conclusions or deductions. 



1. .Michigan may well be proud of this school, by reason of its economic 

 significance in the State. 



2. It has a held of its own, distinct from that of the University, and 

 while it would he a throwing away of opportunity to invade the field 



