20 AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 



for her Professor of Horticulture and Botany ; that he bore off the first Walker prize for an 

 essay on a subject assigned by the Boston Society of Natural History ; that he was selected 

 as one of the two directors of a scientific expedition to the valley of the Amazon. It is to 

 our credit that another graduate has held for several years the chair of agriculture in the 

 University of Wisconsin, with great acceptance to the farmers and educators of the State ; 

 that tbe Professor of Horticulture in Iowa Agricultural College is our graduate, aud that he 

 has been invited, as the papers say, by the University of California, to deliver a course of 

 lectures before that college. A graduate of ours was chosen to superintend farming opera- 

 tions for the Emperor of Japan, and returning with high testimonials of regard for his ser- 

 vices, is now the Professor of Agriculture in Kansas Agricultural College. Another gradu- 

 ate is the Professor of Chemistry in Kansas Agricultural College ; another is Professor of 

 ZoSlogy and Entomology in our own College; and still another is foreman of the college 

 garden?. All these are directly engaged in furthering agricultural affairs, and make more 

 than 50 per cent of graduates to be directly so occupied. I know of no literary college that 

 can point to so large a proportion of its graduates in professorships of other colleges, as the 

 Michigan Agricultural College. 



WRITEKS, ETC. 



Our graduates are often called upon to use the pen, to give addresses, to serve on commit- 

 tees, and the like. The Western Rural has twice called in graduates as assistant editors, 

 exclusive of work done by our Professor of Entomology, who is a graduate. The State 

 Pomological Society's two meteorologists have been graduates, and have made annual re- 

 ports. Our Professor of Entomology has served efficiently as its entomologist, and was, until 

 the pressure of college duties made me ask him to resign, Secretary of the State Bee-keeper's 

 Association. Other students and graduates have taken an active interest in the same asso- 

 ciation. A graduate headed one year the Orchard Committee of the State Pomological 

 Society, and at the late meeting of this society five graduates and students had papers. The 

 Pomological Society reports contain several articles from graduates. 



This is no exhaustive catalogue, but simply illustrations of the way our graduates are 

 working. 



One of the graduates is this winter an assistant editor of a St. Louis (Mo.) agricultural 

 paper ; another has a prize essay in an Indiana pomological report. In the various clubs 

 and societies of the State, I find frequent mention of men whom I recognize as graduates or 

 former students, as taking part, and I find their essays amongst those that are well re- 

 ceived. Essays of young men will be very likely to fall short, in value, of the essays of 

 men who have had long experience in what they write about, but they show that our young 

 men have entered ardently into this field of labor. 



I think it to the credit of the college that the only clergyman among its graduates was for 

 three years, while preaching, the president of a farmers' club whose weekly attendance 

 averaged more than 300 members. Whatever their business, our graduates manifest a deep 

 interest in agricultural pursuits. One graduate was invited to become foreman of our farm, 

 another to take a professorship at a good salary in a Western State University, and both de- 

 clined to leave their farms. 



LOVE FOB KNOWLEDGE. 



I think it a great credit to the college that it has infused into its graduates a great desire 

 for further knowledge. We are one of the very few institutions of learning that yearly re- 

 tain a portion of their graduates for further study. The University has frequently received 

 our graduates into its schools of engineering, pharmacy, medicine, or law. Several have 

 put themselves under the educational charge of Professors Gray, Agassiz. aud others at 

 Harvard ; one went to Cornell, where he afterwards served as an instructor for a year; one 

 took courses of instruction at Yale; one is now a student of horticulture and botany in the 

 Bussey Institution of Harvard ; another is a student in the Massachusetts School of Tech- 

 nology ; another has entered the Royal Veterinary College of Surgeons in London, England, 

 where our diploma was received, I am informed, in lieu of examination and matriculation ; 

 and another, now a fruit-grower, spent two years at a university in Germany. Altogether, 

 I doubt if any college in the land can make a better showing in this awakening of enthusi- 

 asm for knowledge. There are already many who are in their homes giving spare time to 

 entomology and other branches of study, from whom society has something to hope. 



KEPUTATION. 



The institution has already won a good reputation in the nation. It was the first to be estab- 

 lished of all the existing schools of this sort. Massachusetts sent each of her .three presi- 

 dents to visit it, and to copy in great part our plans. Maine copies it, and the former acting 

 president and professor of agriculture spent some time here. A large part of the similar in- 

 stitutions have made personal examination of our plans, and have praised them. President 



