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Territory of tlio I'liiou at least one Agricultural Experiment Station with 

 an annual grant of .^lo,(K)0. Still later Congress added to the income of 

 each of the agricultural and technical colleges by a money grant which 

 now amounts to $25,000 annually. I recall briefly the condition of scien- 

 tific instruction in the State of Indiana in the fiA-e years immediately fol- 

 lowing the Civil War. I can illustrate these years by brief allusions to 

 the system of instruction in use in our higher institutions of learning. 

 By these I mean especially the colleges and universities then existing 

 rather than the high schools. Beginning Avith the oldest institutions of 

 learning, I will say that in the State University during the period noted, 

 instruction in the sciences was given by Professors Owen, Kirkwood and 

 Wylie. These three names are intimately associated with the beginnings 

 of scientific instruction in our State. They were all men of remarkable 

 intellectual power. Professor Owen devoted himself chiefly to the so- 

 called natural sciences (I wonder what are unnatural?), Professor Kirk- 

 wood to astronomy and Professor AVylie to physics. It should not be for- 

 gotten that Professor Richard Owen was chosen as the first president of 

 Purdue, but never actively entered on the duties of the office. His tastes 

 and training were not in the line of executive work, and in addition, his 

 advancing years precluded the possibility of that strenuous service which 

 even in those early days was looked for, perhaps under another name, in 

 the executive office. As there were beautiful women before the days of 

 Helen, so the lives of these pioneers in scientific work remind us that 

 there were great men in Indiana l)efoi'e the days of Jordan and Coulter. 



The next oldest institution is the one I am most familiar with in the 

 State, namely, Hanover College. In that institution instruction in tlie 

 sciences at the time mentioned was given, with the exception of the mathe- 

 matics, exclusively by Dr. John W. Scott. Having studied for four years 

 with this illustrious man I can speak with knowledge of the great work 

 which he accomplished; work, I am sure, which was only a type of that 

 done by other teachers of science in colleges at that time. Dr. Scott had 

 never received any special training in science more than was given in the 

 old colleges existing in our country between the years 1820 to 1825. He 

 was born with the beginning of the last century and happily lived almost 

 to its close. He was educated for the ministry and devoted practically his 

 whole life to the church. During the period of his professorship he Avas 

 pastor of the village church, associating these onerous duties with those 

 of the classroom. Doctor Scott taught many sciences, viz.. botany, geol- 



