SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 209 



children — but she has come well out of them all. Some forty 

 years ago it fell to my lot to conduct the organization of the 

 Agricultural College in Vermont in connection with the univer- 

 sity. I found as our friends have sometimes found here that the 

 most serious task was to convince the very class for whom these 

 colleges are founded, namely, the farmers, that the institution 

 had anything of value to offer to their children. The methods 

 of farming were so intrenched by tradition and immemorial 

 usage that any proposition to improve them by college training 

 was hopelessly condemned as mere "book learning." 



I think the chief agencies in winning favor for this and for all 

 similar colleges have been farmers' institutes and the experiment 

 stations. By the papers and discussions in the institutes it has 

 been made clear to the most conservative farmer that he has 

 something to learn from others, and by the researches at the 

 stations it has been demonstrated that experiments conducted 

 according to the most approved scientific methods can reveal 

 how to make the raising of crops or the culture of fruit or the 

 breeding of animals more profitable. 



It has now become clear that even as no other industry is so 

 important to us as the agricultural, so there is no industry to 

 which science is able to make more valuable contributions. 

 Furthermore, in studying this vexed problem, how to keep the 

 bright boys on the farms, it has become apparent that one of 

 the wisest things is to show them that, rightly understood, the 

 most effective conduct of the farm furnishes an opportunity for 

 the exercise of the highest intelligence, enlightened and inspired 

 by the best type of theoretical and practical scientific training. 



This college has been fortunate in commanding the services 

 of teachers of a high order of merit, several of whom are known 

 wherever agricultural education is appreciated. Indeed, some 

 of them have been so conspicuous that they have been drafted 

 into the service of other institutions that pay higher salaries than 

 Michigan allows herself to offer. Moreover, a good number of 



