FARMERS' INSTITUTES. v 37 



I see by your program Thursday forenoon is set aside to give you 

 an opportunity to visit the educational institutions at Ann Arbor and 

 Ypsilanti. I w^ish to express here a liope that a large number of you, 

 if not all of you, will visit the State Normal College and look over your 

 })roperty and see what we have and what we are doing. We will try to 

 give you an opportunity to see the student body assembled at chapel, 

 and I wish to assure you of a most cordial welcome both from faculty 

 and students. 



HIGHER EDUCATION AT THE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



PRESIDENT J. L. SNYDEK, AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 



If passengers are kept in the hold, a wise captain and crew can run 

 the ship. But if all the passengers, steerage and cabin, are on deck 

 with a voice in the choice of a captain, and to whom he must report his 

 plans for their approval, then, of course, the passengers must be wise, 

 else they will all soon go to the bottom together. On the grand Ship of 

 State upon which we are jjassengers, all are allowed on deck and have an 

 equal voice in the selection of a captain, and in formulating the laws by 

 which his actions are to be governed. It follows that those upon whom 

 the responsibility of choosing a captain and the making of the laws 

 depend, must be wise, or tlie great Ship of State will soon be floundering 

 on unknown seas, and will, ere long, add another to the many wrecks of 

 the past. 



It is generally admitted that intelligence and morality are absolutely 

 indispensable to the perpetuity of our government. This being true, 

 the government, as a matter of self-preservation, has encouraged public 

 education. It has given up millions of acres of its public domain to 

 establish free schools, with the belief that free schools would make good 

 citizens. If the object of public education is to make good citizens, it 

 is pertinent to inquire as to what are the principal characteristics of a 

 good citizen. He must be moral. Yes, he must feel a responsibility to 

 his Creator. If he does not respect God's laws, he is not likely to obey 

 man's laws. He must be intelligent, or must have at least a fair degree 

 of knowledge. One cannot be a very good citizen of this country if he 

 is ignorant of its natural resources. How can one sing, "I love thy 

 focks and rills, thy woods and tempkd hills," who knows nothing of the 

 extent and beauty of our fair land? To love his country one must know 

 what it has cost. He must be familiar .with the struggle of our fore- 

 fathers — Bunker Hill, Saratoga and Yorktown must be terms which will 

 stir within him patriotic emotions. He must know what our country 

 stands for among the nations of the world. Yes, morality and intelli- 

 gence are necessary qualifications for good citizenship, but are they all 

 that are required of the good citizen? 



You can find many able bodied fjeople with both these qualifications 

 wiio depend upon public charity for the means of subsistence, who are 

 either too indolent or do not have sufficient energy and skill to earn a 



