368 Agriadtural College at Lansing, MicMgan. [August, 



necessary expenses to be incurred in the etablishment and success- 

 ful operation of said Institution. This act provides for said Insti- 

 tution a liberal curiculum of studies, embracing a full and extensive 

 course of science for those who may avail themselves of its pro- 

 visions. At the last session of the Legislature they made further 

 provision for sustaining the Institution during the next two years 

 by the liberal appropriation of forty thousand dollars out of the 

 State Treasury. 



A corps of professors having been elected, and the Institution 

 being prepared for the reception of students, it was dedicated by 

 the Board of Education to the purposes designed, with appropriate 

 services, on the 13th of May, 1857, in the presence of the Governor 

 and other State ofl&cers, amidst a large concourse of citizens from 

 all parts of the State 



This is certainly commendable and furnishes evidence that the 

 people are beginning to look to their own true interests. Such 

 interest on the part of the Governor and other distinguished State 

 officers, in behalf of the liberal education of that great and hitherto 

 neglected class for his life work, is certainly worthy of our highest 

 approbation as it exhibits in such striking contrast the policy 

 pursued by our own State, and many of the older States, and it 

 behooves us to hold it up as a prominent example and one worthy 

 their imitation. In the policy pursued on this subject hitherto, 

 there has been no recognition of the great and important truth that 

 agriculture is one of the profoundest of sciences, or that those 

 employed in it need any other education than to fit them to dig 

 and delve, as the serf in the mine. 



Thus, by a kind of traditionary neglect and prejudice four-fifths of 

 our race, on whose sweat and toil all subsist, have been doomed to 

 ignorance as unworthy of mental cultivation. But we are led to 

 hope that a brighter day is dawning ; and we welcome to our ranks 

 this young and promising co-laborer in the cause of agricultural 

 science and sound scientific attainments. For years we have plead 

 the cause of such Institutions; we have endeavored to demonstrate 

 their necessity, and to the extent of our ability have labored for 

 their upbuilding. Farmers' College, though strangly ignored in 

 certain directions, claims to be a pioneer in the great work. Her 

 history dates back when not an Institution of the kind was to be 

 found in our broad land ; and the doctrines she then promulged 

 are the same as those now so eloquently held forth by the President 



