THE COLLEGE 49 



organizations visited the institution, investigated, and reported. It is 

 not necessary to say much about what they found, or rather what 

 they did not find. When the farmers heard about it through their 

 organization, a movement to right things, sane, intelligent, determined, 

 irresistible, was begun. 



In 1895, the trustees had asked the legislature for $40,000 for a 

 dairy building. This was scarcely considered. Two years later, they 

 had asked for $80,000 for an agricultural building. The effort 

 failed, many farmers and farmers' institutes opposing it. Two years 

 later, and for the third time, the trustees asked for an agricultural 

 building, fixing the amount at $100,000. The farmers and the State 

 Farmers' Institute officially endorsed the asking; it was supported by 

 every state agricultural organization. A campaign of education com- 

 menced throughout the length and breadth of the state. By careful 

 study it became evident that $100,000 would not be sufficient to pro- 

 vide what was needed, and the estimate was raised to $ljO,000 dur- 

 ing the campaign. Resolutions were passed, favorable to this asking, 

 at every county institute held in the state, with one exception. Finally, 

 the bill passed the General Assembly without amendment and with 

 only one dissenting vote. When this vote was taken and the building 

 planned, there were but nineteen students in the College of Agricul- 

 ture. 



In those days it was easier to build a dreadnaught than a College 

 of Agriculture. Interest could be aroused in two continents in solv- 

 ing a problem of aerial navigation, but it was difficult to get the people 

 to support the proposition of spending money in developing the re- 

 sources of the country in order to increase the productive capacity of 

 its people, for in this farmers were not alone interested since in the 

 last analysis all prosperity rests upon a successful agriculture. Agri- 

 cultural education stands not only for that industry but for all things 

 needful and contemporaneous in the development of intelligent and 

 patriotic citizens. The preponderance of human ideals and human 

 efforts is, I believe, always toward the good ; and the prevailing course 

 and tendency of human institutions is toward the better. Enterprises 

 may sometimes seem to go zigzag, to go wrong end foremost, or at 

 times to remain stationary or go backwards; but ultimately we shall 

 get onward and upward. The best things come not at once, but by 

 evolution, step by step, from imperfection to excellence. Agriculture 

 in its beginning was simple indeed ; but in its higher development we 

 see it growing complex, comprehensible, drawing to its aid, assimilat- 

 ing, and rendering subservient all our leading sciences of chemistry, 



