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policies of his predecessors, he unobstrusively and without 

 undue publicity endeavors to organize the best and most 

 efficient faculty of agriculture that has ever been known. 



THE EVOLUTION OF AN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE BY 

 EUGENE W. HILGARD* 



In celebrating today the completion of this building 

 devoted to the higher phases of agricultural education, we 

 hark back to the time when, just fifty years ago, the first 

 national recognition of the importance and rights of voca- 

 tional education was placed upon the status of the United 

 States by Senator Justin Morrill, of Vermont. At the 

 very height of the Civil War, there was thus manifested 

 the confidence in the future of the nation by the enactment 

 of this important measure for the promotion of the funda- 

 mental industry of peace. I propose to recall very briefly 

 the subsequent development of the educational and experi- 

 mental work thus initiated, and which through many vicissi- 

 tudes has now become an almost overshadowing movement, 

 among the results of which is the splendid building before 

 which we stand. 



The critical clause of the " First Morrill Act" provided 

 that "there shall be established in each state at least one 

 college, the leading object of which shall be, without ex- 

 cluding classical and other literary studies, and including 

 military tactics, to teach the sciences bearing on agriculture 

 and mechanic arts, for the education of the industrial 

 classes in the several pursuits and professions of life." 

 The interpretation of this clause has been the subject of 

 much controversy ever since the end of the Civil War ; and 

 the echoes of that controversy are still at times with us. 

 On the one hand, it was contended that the act was intended 

 for the vocational education of "every farmer's son in the 

 land, ' ' and that the funds derived from the sale of the lands 



* Read at the Dedication Exercises by Professor R. H. Loughridge. 



