22, STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



There is, however, one observation relative to this aspect of higher 

 education of peculiar significance to us in Michigan. It is a matter of no 

 slight importance to the citizens of this State that the highest in education 

 lies open, and practically free, to any one who desires to avail himself 

 of its advantages. Under such conditions education can never result 

 in the establishment of a class. It can never get very far from the needs 

 of the people. It can never become an aristocratic affair. From the 

 primary school to the university, the opportunity of securing an educa- 

 tion lies open to every citizen of the State. Were it not for the constant 

 recruits from all classes of the people, the University, and I doubt not, 

 also, the Agricultural College, might as well close its doors. Statistical 

 data in support of this statement might be submitted were that necessary, 

 but I leave this phase of the subject to what seems of relatively greater 

 importance, namely, the general and social advantages of maintaining 

 higher institutions of learning. 



The second point of view from which the relation of higher education 

 to the people may be considered pertains to the character of the service 

 rendered by the men and women who receive collegiate and university 

 instruction. The range of knowledge at the present time is so broad 

 that no one person, however gifted, can become its master. Specialization 

 is the rule in all progressive life, and the degree to which specialization is 

 carried may be accepted as a measure of social advancement. The 

 product of successful specialization is the expert. It may be that the 

 motive which leads one to become an expert is the hope of personal 

 advantage which knowledge gives, but it would be a mistake to assume 

 that this advantage stops with the individual who by study becomes an 

 expert. Indeed, we do not begin to measure its importance until we 

 appreciate the extent to which it is used by the public at large. We are 

 apt to overlook the fact that it is impossible to develop an expert of high 

 efficiency without raising its general plane of excellence in the class to 

 which he belongs. An expert physician, for example, is only possible 

 upon the basis of a highly developed science of medicine. Such a physi- 

 cian must avail himself of the thousands of experiments in the many 

 laboratories scattered throughout the world. Each laboratory makes its 

 contribution; each publishes its discovery. As isolated facts, these con- 

 tributions and discoveries are of slight im])ortance, but, correlated with 

 the contributions and discoveries of other laboratories, they build up a 

 body of useful knowledge which, in the hands of a skilled physician, 

 permits not only the alleviation of pain, but the control of diseases before 

 regarded as a sentence of death. 



Citizens of Michigan, may contemplate with pride this phase of our 

 argument, for no medical school in this country, and few in Europe, 

 have made more positive or helpful contributions to the science of medi- 

 cine, during the last quarter of a century, than the one which our State 

 supports. One or two illustrations of what the development of the science 

 of medicine has done in recent years may not be inappropriate. 



Diphtheria used to be one of the most dreaded of diseases, and well 

 might this be the case. Before the discov^ery of modern treatment fifty 

 cases in a hundred terminated fatally; at present the ratio of mortality 

 is ten in a hundred. In Ihe matter of milk and milk poisons, there has 

 been wonderful advance in recent years. The record of fourteen hospitals 

 in the citv of New York shows that, in the case of children brought for 



