SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 231 



Wisconsin and the University of Minnesota, though neither insti- 

 tution dated its origin from this grant, the era of active develop- 

 ment and of vital activity dates from the utilization of this federal 

 grant. Now this federal grant for the improvement of educa- 

 tion in agriculture and the mechanic arts was followed up some 

 years later by a remarkable grant for the establishment and 

 development of agricultural experiment stations. Although 

 these institutions have in some cases been established separately 

 from the agricultural college, yet I cannot help feeling that 

 their influence has been one of the most specific and peculiar and 

 remarkable forces at work in the development of this whole 

 branch of education, and I do not know that I can do anything 

 better to set forth my idea, even at the risk of being a little per- 

 sonal, than to show how this idea has worked as a ferment in the 

 institution which I represent more particularly. I take great 

 pleasure in emphasizing this fact more especially because we 

 happen to have had at a critical time at the head of our College 

 of Agriculture a man who is an alumnus and a former member 

 of the faculty of this institution, a man whom we delight to honor, 

 a man for whose production, if you please, we are under great 

 obligations to you, Dean Eugene Davenport. 



The establishment of the agricultural experiment station was 

 the most distinct recognition on the part of the government that 

 if you are going to establish higher professional education in any 

 line, it must be upon thoroughgoing scientific investigation as 

 the fundamental substructure, so that every man engaged in the 

 work of teaching in the College of Agriculture is also engaged 

 in the work of investigation, and the man who is not doing some- 

 thing to quicken his subject, to add to the knowledge we have of 

 it; who is not himself striving to improve, to increase our knowl- 

 edge of the subject or improve the application of it, is likely to 

 be an arid and unfruitful teacher. Now, I think it is not too 

 much to say that in no branch of professional education today 

 in this country anywhere is there such complete and full recog- 



