185*7.] Agricultural College at Lansing^ Micliigan. 3G9 



of this new Agricultural College. While we would not pluck a 

 laurel from the brow of the President or the State that thus lays 

 claim to the establishment of the "pioneer Agricultural College in 

 the West," we would simply state the fact that Farmers' College of 

 Ohio has already a history from its incipient movement, of near a 

 quarter of a century, and as a regularly endowed College of over 

 twelve years ; and has been instrumental in educating, to a greater 

 or less extent, over two thousand young men, some of whom arc 

 men of influence and position in several of the States of this Union, 

 and not a few in foreign lands as Missionaries or pioneers. This is 

 not the first time we have had the pleasure to read the record of the 

 pioneer Agricultural College, even in our own State. The same 

 story was recently told of the first Agricultural College in the West, 

 as being located at Oberlin, fully manned with a corps of lecturers, 

 afterwards by some strange freak transferred to Cleveland. And 

 now in eloquent phrase we are told that on the far off margin of 

 the " cultivated portions of our country, where the forests primeval 

 are just vanishing before the encroachments of civilization, the 

 youthful and vigorous State of Michigan, first among her sister 

 States, dedicates an Institution to the instruction of men who are 

 devoted exclusively to the cultivation of the earth. Established on 

 no precedent, it is alike a pioneer in the march of men and the 

 march of mind." If this is intended to be said of this Institution 

 as being the first established by State patronage the fact must be con- 

 ceded, but if absolutely the pioneer in the " march of men and of 

 mind," we take issue and prefer the humble claim of our own 

 priority. 



But we will not stop to boast of honors in regard to our entrance 

 upon the race but hail our sister College as a noble coadjutor in 

 this department of educational labor, and hope and pray that sha 

 may be more successful in her labors than we have yet been, in con- 

 vincing the yeomanry of our country that it is as important that 

 they as a class should be as well educated as the few whom the 

 learned President has well said, " live on the miseries, credulity and 

 ignorance of mankind," viz : the professional men,* who are now 

 the only men deemed worthy of the highest educational advantages 

 of our country. 



* The mere parasites of society, iusinuating themselves amonsj the bark are ther 

 carefully nurtured, while the pareut tree, grafting its strong roots in the earth has been 

 neglected. 



VOL. II., YIII. — 24. 



