FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



ROBERT CLARK KEDZIE. 



On the evening of November 7, 1902, the man who was often called the 

 founder of the Michigan Farmers' Institutes, departed this life. Dr. R. 

 C. Kedzie was born in Delhi, N. Y., January 28, 1823, and came with his 

 parents in 1826 to Deerfield, Lenawee County, Michigan. His father 

 dying soon after this, the mother was left with seven children to maintain 

 the struggle of the pioneer life. 



His training in the public schools was scanty but in 1840 he entered 

 Oberlin College. After graduating from the classical course, he was prin- 

 cipal of the Academy at Rochester, Oakland County, for two years, after 

 which he entered the medical department of the University of Michigan 

 and graduated with its first class in 1851. After practicing his profes- 

 sion for one year in Kalamazoo and for ten years in Vermontville, he 

 served for a year in the civil war as surgeon of the Twelfth Michigan In- 

 fantry. In 1863 he was appointed to the chair of chemistry in the Mich- 

 igan Agricultural College and retained this position for nearly forty 

 years. In June, 1903, he was made professor emeritus. When the State 

 Experiment Station was organized, in 1887, he was appointed chemist 

 and a member of the council, w^hich positions he retained until his death. 

 • Professor Kedzie served as a member of the State Board of Health and 

 his work in safeguarding the use of illuminating oils and investigating 

 the danger from arsenical wallpaper, as well as in various other lines, 

 will not soon be forgotten. 



In 1863 he was given the degree of M. A. by Oberlin College ; the Agri- 

 cultural College in 1898 conferred the degree of D. Sc, and the University 

 of Michigan, in 1901, bestowed upon him its highest honor, the degree 

 of LL. D. 



For the first sixteen years in the history of the Michigan Agricultural 

 College, it labored under a great disadvantage, as the great farming com- 

 munity of our State knew nothing of what the college was trying to do 

 for them and, on the other hand, the members of the college faculty lacked 

 the stimulus which the practical farmer can impart by questions and sug- 

 gestions to the scientific worker in laboratory and field. 



At a meeting of the faculty, held May 7, 1875, Dr. Kedzie presented 

 a resolution whose first sentence was: "Resolved, That a committee of 

 three be appointed by the president to draw up a scheme for a series of 

 Farmers' Institutes to be held in difi'erent parts of the State during the 

 next winter." 



The institutes were sanctioned by the board, and the matter of their 

 inauguration was placed in the hands of a committee consisting of Drs. 

 Kedzie and Beal and Prof. Carpenter. The subject seemed a rather deli- 

 cate one to handle. There were no precedents. Of their own motion the 

 professors from the college could not invade a farming community and 

 hold an institute, they must first be invited to come. However, there 

 was no lack of invitations and, from the first. Farmers' Institutes were 

 recognized as being mutual cooperative affairs in which the farmers them- 

 selves were to present at least half of the matter appearing on the pro- 

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