370 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE 



There are as many roads to success as there are directions from a given 

 point. Many lead along the highways of fame and fortune, while others 

 follow the well trodden paths of poverty and obscurity. 



Your life will be what you make it. If you are true at all times to 

 your higher nature, to that which your better self tells you is right, your 

 life will be a success in whatever calling or occupation spent, and when 

 the end comes you will realize that the consciousness of a life well spent 

 is most delightsome. 



Your record, as far as your College life is concerned, has been made. In 

 addition to the record which you have made upon the College books you 

 made for yourselves records, which are written on the hearts of your 

 teachers and fellow students. These records are a fairer and more com- 

 prehensive estimate of your real worth than per cents or figures put down 

 upon paper. Every day's work, thought and motive will add to this 

 record. In view of the education and training which you have received, 

 may I not entreat you to make this record worthy of your Alma Mater, 

 which stands ready to give you encouragement and aid in any laudable 

 undertaking, and which in turn hopes to merit your loyal support? May 

 I not entreat you to make a record worthy of the State and Nation whose 

 liberality has given you so many educational advantages? May you at 

 all times show your appreciation of these special privileges and ever sup- 

 port and uphold the dignity of the laws of this Nation and common- 

 wealth. 



We bid you farewell with the assurance that our eyes shall follow you, 

 expecting much and with the prayer that your record, which in the 

 nature of the case will be indelible, may have your own approval in your 

 best moments; may be clean and clear and Christlike. 



GREAT OPPORTUNITIES IN A GREAT AGE. 



BACCALAUREATE SERMON BY PRESIDENT JOHN HENRY BARROWS, D. D., OP 



OBERLIN COLLEGE, BEFORE THE MICHIGAN AGRICULTURAL 



COLLEGE, JUNE 11, 1S99. 



Text, Psalms S: 5-6. 



Marvelous has become the mastery achieved by man over material 

 things. The tiger walks the Indian jungle, proudly conscious of power 

 to attack and defend. The lion has his tooth and terrible paw, and is 

 king over beasts. But in man is the spirit of God, and therefore, all obey 

 him. The monsters crawl at his feet, subdued. He moves his wand 

 aud magnetic wires murmur through a thousand leagues of sea the intelli- 

 gible speech of nations. At his touch deserts become gardens, moun- 

 tains ore leveled or pierced, and continents girded with iron. He yokes 

 the tides of the moon to his mill wheel, and bids the strong earth by 

 gravitation turn his mill spindles. He magnifies his vision so as to peer 

 into atoms and star depths. No ape or elephant ever invented a micro- 

 scope or took out a patent for a mowing machine. Man only is lord over 

 nature. He only can till the earth and subdue it, and call forth its hid- 

 den forces and possibilities. On him only the giants and the fairies wait. 

 For him "the diving-bell of memory," as Emerson has said, ''descends 

 into the deeps in our past and oldest experience^ and brings up every lost 



