COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES 325 



expanding: beyond the bounds of co-oj)ei'ation and definite control. Other 

 industries ^vere likewise jiiving greater scope to agricultural science, 

 and were steadily establishing methods which were new in agricultural 

 practice. But with all this advancement, this stupendous expansion 

 of the scope of agriculture, embracing yearly its thousands of acres of 

 virgin soil and ])rimeval wilderness, with the marvelously increasing 

 annual yield, with every apparent avenue for development, there yet 

 remained one factor absent. A plan, a scheme for the establishment 

 of permanent institutions throughout the union, where agricultural 

 science would be taught, and where investigations might be carried 

 on in the interests of husbandry — this as yet was lacking. 



Early in the century, a few attempts had been made toward agri- 

 cultural education. Here and there agricultural and horticultural so- 

 cieties had been formed, local fairs held, and now and then a publication 

 on agriculture had appeared from the i)en of some patriarch of the 

 plow. In one or two states, minor agricultural schools had been estab- 

 lished by private enterprise, where the cruder branches were taught, 

 and A\here for the first time, the chemist's mystic powers were har- 

 nessed in the interests of agricultural science. Science, indeed, had 

 found its way into a few of the academies and colleges; manual train- 

 ing had received some attention. But such efforts were spasmodic. 

 They were but the humble beginnings of a greater end. 



It was well for the followers of agriculture, that, at this juncture, a 

 man of acute perception should endeaver to crystallize this increasing 

 demand for scientific learning into form and power; well for them that 

 he should turn aside from the heat and fury of the hour, and find his 

 energies needed in tardy labor and struggling industry. In a time 

 when northern homes were giving their bravest and best to battle 

 and sombre southern plains were ghastly with the blood and brains of 

 men; while the industries of a nation lay paralyzed by the mighty con- 

 flict in war, it was well that one man should turn his back to ambulance 

 and cannon and seek to better his countrymen through the arts of 

 peace, rather than the ravages of war. That man was Justin Smith 

 Morrill. 



In the bill introduced into the national house, July, 1SG2, Mr. Morrill 

 proposed a system which at last should minister to the needs of the 

 industrial classes. It was a plan at once original, complex, far-reach- 

 ing, consummate. In the words of the measure, it provides for "the 

 endowment, supi)ort and maintenance of one college in each state where 

 the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and 

 classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach such branches 

 of h'ui-ning as are related to agriculture and the mechanics arts, in 

 such manner as the legislature of the states may respectively pre- 

 scribe, in order to promote the liberal and ])ractical education of the 

 industrial classes in the several pursuits and ju'ofessions of life." From 

 the first fiei-ce opposition assailed the bill on every hand. Eminent 

 men everywhere condemned it as interfering with states' rights. News- 

 papers ridiculed it as a scheme utterly incai»able of prosecution. Public 

 sentiment laughed at the man who would teach the farmer's son to 

 apply scieiiee to his craft. T'ut thF persistence of the modest New f]ng- 

 lauder would not down. Ceaselessly, jiatiently, he worked, till his 

 task was done. True public servant, he had an inborn sympathy lor all 



