LIFE AND WORK AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY 183 



Boajd of Trustees that I be given the degree of 

 Master of Agriculture, and the Board adopted the 

 recommendation. This was the first degree, of 

 M.Agr. ever given by them or, in fact, given by 

 any college in the United States. 



The President of Cornell University, Andrew 

 D. White, took the greatest interest in my work 

 from the beginning; and as I became better ac- 

 quainted with Cornell and with his plans I think 

 I must have acquired the " Cornell spirit," for by 

 the end of the first year I was loath to give up my 

 place. So much had been done to encourage me 

 and to give my department as good standing as it 

 could have, considering the circumstances, that I 

 reconsidered my determination to return to my 

 farm in Iowa. I realized that the time had come 

 for me to make a well-digested plan for my future 

 life and for my children and to pursue it stead- 

 fastly to the end. I saw that there was a larger 

 future here both for them and for me than there 

 would be if I should become the livestock farmer 

 in Iowa that I had planned to be. By this time 

 maturity and a broader outlook had caused me to 

 understand the possibilities of agricultural educa- 

 tion and I determined to lay the foundations of a 

 College of Agriculture such as had never been 

 conceived. 



