STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 215 



sity of Minnesota is necessary if we are to maintain the honor- 

 able reputation we have won, or are to keep pace with the ed- 

 ucation of our neighbors. 



The state of Minnesota has many things of which she may 

 justly be proud. Her territory is a royal domain of magnificent 

 proportions. Her soil is of surprising fertility: her climate is 

 most invigorating. Her people are enterprising, enthusiastic, 

 united. Her rapid progress in material development, in popu- 

 lation, in wealth, commands the attention, the admiration, the 

 wonder of the whole country. Beyond her is a territory stretch- 

 ing from the Mississippi to the Pacific, the future home of mill- 

 ions, whose wealth will pour itself an endless flood into her 

 borders. The State so great in material resources is hardly less 

 great in her liberal provision for education. She ought to feel 

 pride in her highest institution, her university. What, then, shall 

 the University of Minnesota be to the state of Minnesota? Shall 

 it be a real university, or shall it be dismembered and divided 

 one part here and another there ? Shall it be a university or a 

 confederacy of high schools? Shall it be to Minnesota what Har- 

 vard University ha^ been to Massachusetts, Yale to Connecticut, 

 and Princeton to New Jersey, the university of the State and 

 thus of national reputation, or shall it be one of the universi- 

 ties of Minnesota and so unknown beyond the State ? It is not 

 the university of the regents who govern it, nor of the faculty who 

 teach in it. It is the university of the state of Minnesota. To 

 the state of Minnesota, therefore, I look with confidence for such 

 wise and liberal action as shall preserve the university from mu- 

 tilation, shall enable it to keep abreast the age in its learning 

 and teaching, and shall make it an institution where all sound 

 learning may be gained, where the rich and the poor may meet 

 together on equal terms and may secure an education good 

 enough for the highest while not too good for the lowest. And for 

 the accomplishment of this I appeal to you, gentlemen, as in- 

 telligent members of the most powerful body of workers in the 

 commonwealth, to give it your hearty and effective support. 



On motion the speaker was given a vote of thanks for his able 

 and interesting address, and it was ordered placed on file for 

 publication. 



